Opinions & Interviews

Minister: Belarusian government fulfills all social guarantees in 2020

MINSK, 23 February (BelTA) - The Belarusian government fulfilled all social guarantees in 2020, Economy Minister Aleksandr Chervyakov told the media before a meeting of the Council of Ministers on 23 February, BelTA has learned.

“Last year was unusual, including because of the pandemic. Nevertheless, the government took necessary measures to support both public and private enterprises. As a result, we managed to preserved labor collectives. The government fulfilled all its social guarantees. This is the main thing. In July, most industries began to recover. In Q4 2020 we practically reached the level of Q4 2019 in terms of GDP. In October, we restored our exports, and in December we already got a 4% increase,” said Aleksandr Chervyakov. The trade surplus in goods and services in 2020 was about $2 billion.

The minister added that the level of income in 2020 increased by 4%, wages - by 8%. “It should be noted however that a number of industries still remained in the red. First of all, these are industries related to services. There are objective reasons for this: markets were closed, it was impossible to go abroad, and there were security restrictions. Tourism, passenger transport, and catering showed poor performance which affected the national economy,” he said.

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