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PM: Belarus’ economy withstands the West’s sanctions by and large

MINSK, 7 April (BelTA) – By and large the Belarusian economy is holding out against the sanctions of the West, Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said at the Security Council meeting, BelTA has learned.

“The economy as a whole is handling the pressure of the sanctions imposed last year. Companies are working, people have jobs, salaries are paid on time,” Roman Golovchenko said.

According to him, in January-February, exports of goods went up by 21.5% year-on-year.

“In other words, the demand for our products has grown and there are no problems with their sale, because virtually everything that we produce is in demand, first of all, on our main sales market, which is the Russian Federation. We fought for it,” Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The foreign trade surplus amounted to $700 million, the net profit of enterprises more than tripled, the profitability of sales exceeded 9%, the prime minister continued. The real incomes of households also keep growing.

The president noted that the head of government gave a general assessment of the state of things in the domestic economy, however, there are enterprises that are doing very well and there are those that are lagging behind. “We will try to figure out what prevents these enterprises from operating in the black. These are mainly small companies that produce goods that are relevant and in demand. And there are no problems with raw materials. All this suggests that we are under-performing, that we have lowered our guard,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.

According to Roman Golovchenko, the Belarusian economy could have grown even faster than planned, but in early March, the West significantly scaled up the sanctions. “In order to quickly adapt the economy to the new conditions and mitigate this blow, the government switched to a mobilization mode of operation. The operational team works every day, if necessary, government decisions are taken within 48 hours. The situation in key sectors of the economy is manageable, the main performance targets are being fulfilled by companies, there is no overstocking in warehouses,” the prime minister informed.

He explained that the products of BMZ, MTZ, MAZ worth $1.5 billion that were meant for Ukraine, the EU countries and the United States would be redirected to the domestic market, to Russia and to other countries.

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