Belarusian People’s Congress

Referring to the situation in Belarus in the early 1990s, Alexander Lukashenko remarked that prerequisites were in place for the country to come under external control. Attempts were made to steal juicy pieces of the state property and leave the nation in poverty. “However, it didn’t come to pass in our country. We have chosen our way — evolutionary development instead of a shock therapy,” stressed the Belarusian leader.

According to the President, for the sake of objective analysis of the current situation it is necessary to take a broader look at the state of affairs without restricting the view to the last year of the five-year term. “This year we celebrate the 25^th anniversary of sovereign Belarus. We should recall the entire way of establishment of independence of our country. Every one of us remembers perfectly well the breakdown in the 1990s and the construction of a new country. You and I are creators and direct participants of the great historical process,” stressed Alexander Lukashenko.

Alexander Lukashenko noted that the collapse of the Soviet Union was truly the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. It became a genuine drama for the Belarusian nation, too. People’s bank deposits were valueless, the old ideals were gone. Mass poverty was accepted as the norm. “All of that happened against the background of a terrible economic downturn, unstable finances, and paralysis of the social sphere. Back then the Belarusian nation faced the need to simultaneously defend its sovereignty and make an absolutely correct new policy to build the economy and the society. We were on thin ice,” said the Belarusian leader.

Alexander Lukashenko noted that among participants of the fifth Belarusian People’s Congress there are those, who were present during the first Belarusian People’s Congress and remember the reasons that had prompted the head of state to organize it. “Were it not for the support of the delegates, who came from all over the country… They had one dream in mind: it is necessary to save the country. If they hadn’t said solid ‘no’ to chaos back then, we wouldn’t be here today. It is the value of the first Belarusian People’s Congress, which traditions we uphold today.”

The President reminded that in the first stage of establishment of sovereign Belarus (1995-2005) they spent ten years restoring the country. “Think about it: for ten years we were busy restoring what had been destroyed while other countries were moving forward, developing new enterprises, inventing new technologies, building social facilities. Consequences of the Chernobyl disaster made the situation even worse. The damage to the Belarusian economy totaled roughly $235 billion back then or as much as 32 budgets of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1985. This is why additional resources were diverted to deal with Chernobyl problems,” noted the Belarusian leader.

“We couldn’t leave our people in distress. Our nation steadfastly and bravely overcame the difficulties and hardships on its own. As a result, Belarus was the first post-Soviet country to reach parameters of the precrisis year of 1990,” stressed Alexander Lukashenko. “We survived thanks to the industriousness and unity of the nation, to the firmness and honesty of our politics, the justified policy that we adopted back then.”

The second large-scale stage of development of the Belarusian economy happened in 2005-2015. Ensuring the stability of economic development was the central idea. It was the time for systemic modernization of all branches of the economy. “After restoring what had been lost we started integrating the national economy into the global market, catching up with the leaders, who were far ahead of us in manufacturing and technologies,” reminded Alexander Lukashenko.

The Belarusian leader continued that in 2005-2009 development was propelled thanks to outstripping growth of export to the Russian market and the European market. Economic revival was secured thanks to the larger scale of manufacturing. This period of most active growth was dubbed by foreign media as the “Belarusian economic wonder”. The high economic growth rate back then contributed to the accomplishment of many social tasks. “We managed to redirect considerable volumes of investments into social sphere and housing construction. Nearly half of all the investments,” the head of state quoted an example.

“The Belarusian economy was growing at a fast pace even despite the world financial crisis of 2008-2009. In the first ten years of the new millennium Belarus’ GDP nearly doubled while real monetary earnings nearly tripped. We managed to take care of the food security problem as well as many other important matters,” said the President.

Belarus also secured undoubtable accomplishments in the area of social policy. “The accomplishment of several UN Millennium Development Goals as early as 2015 confirms it. Belarus went from the 68^th position in 2000 to the 50^th position in 2015 in the human development index among nearly 200 countries. It earned us a place in the group of countries with a high level of human development. In 2014 Belarus’ population started rising for the first time in 20 years. The mortality rate and the birthrate are nearly equal, the demographic entrapment is now much smaller. It is the result we have been working to achieve and are proud of,” concluded the Belarusian leader.