Belarus's economy remains dependent on imports - KGC

August 17, Minsk / Liliya Krapivina - BELTA/. Belarus's economy remains dependent on imports. This was stated today by the Chairman of the Committee of State Control Alexander Yakobson at a meeting of the KSС, where the situation with import purchases and import substitution issues was analyzed, BELTA correspondent reports.

The analysis showed that the economy's dependence on imports persists. Imports account for almost one-third of the production costs in terms of imported raw materials, materials, components, and fuel. According to the results of the first quarter of 2011, the foreign trade balance worsened compared to the corresponding period of last year, stated Alexander Yakobson. He admitted that 73% of imports are intermediate goods. "Yes, we have a large volume of intermediate imports, this is a specific feature of the commodity structure, we do not have our own energy resources," he noted. Energy imports account for almost half of the intermediate goods. This is an objective factor, noted the Chairman of the KSC. But if this energy component is excluded, there is still a negative foreign trade balance in goods, which amounted to $650 million in the first quarter. Thus, the arguments of some importers that the negative balance is due to energy goods are unconvincing. In the first quarter, import intensity increased again by 0.6 percentage points, noted the head of the KSC.

Analysis of the activities of enterprises in import procurement has shown that organizations of communal ownership are more effective in achieving a positive foreign trade balance. Although it should be noted here that they do not have production volumes as high as enterprises of republican ownership. The import situation is more or less normal for enterprises without departmental ownership. However, for enterprises of republican ownership, the results in reducing imports and import substitution are "still very unconvincing," said Alexander Jakobson. In his opinion, many managers still do not realize this problem, "and sometimes they are simply afraid to solve it." "Managers are not geared towards this problem, they are afraid of it and do not deal with it," believes Alexander Jakobson. He cited the Braslav Bakery as an example, where with a capacity of 47 tons of bread per day, only 7 tons are produced. The enterprise has a lot of unused space. The plant management believes that there is no import component in their bread production, completely disregarding the use of imported energy carriers. Also, this bakery does not try to export its products, and no one provides it with export targets. Meanwhile, in Belarus, there are many examples of other bread production enterprises that successfully export them.

Another fact revealed by the State Control Committee when analyzing the import situation. In the free economic zones in the first half of the year, the foreign trade balance was negative and reached almost $60 million. "This destroys the very idea of FEZs," believes the head of the State Control Committee, since it is the free economic zones that are designed to work for export. According to Alexander Jakobson, if our producers continue to buy more than they sell, it is like futile work, believes the chairman of the committee.

He also emphasized that the State Control Committee, which constantly pays great attention to solving this problem, will not remove it from control until it sees a positive trend.-0-