Viktar Marhelau: Belarusan economics before CES and WTO looks like an AIDS patient
Unfavorable financial situation with bank loans, problem of monopolization and tough conditions in the labor market – these are top-three challenges which Belarusan economy will have to meet in 2013.
According to his words, the main challenge is connected with the fact that financial situation with bank loans doesn’t allow absolute majority of entrepreneurs to carry on business extension. Throughout 2012 the inflation of about 20% is observed. “Bank loans are given at 40-100 per cent interest per annum and the profitability of medium industry is within 15 per cent. It is clear that with the rare exception one cannot talk about any expansion of production”, - explains Viktar Marhelau, a co-chairman of the Republican Confederation of Entrepreneurship to the EuroBelarus Information Service.
He assumes that this problem should be surmounted, for instance, after the Russian pattern. Starting from 2013 Russia imposes additional restrictions on “usurious” loans, i.e. those loans which charge the borrower with high interest which differs considerably from the normal one on the market.
Another challenge is that Belarusan small and medium-sized business can find itself out of it before long, if it fails to stop sky-rocketing monopolization of industry and, particularly, commerce. If actions against monopolization are not taken in the course of year, then irreversible consequences will start, by which small and medium-sized business as well as medium-sized industries will find themselves without trade areas, assumes Marhelau.
The third challenge concerns grave situation that has emerged on the labor market. “Practically every enterprise has it as one of the main problems – no one to work with, neither in small towns nor in the capital. Of course, there is competition to fill a highly paid vacancy, but on the whole, if we speak about low and average qualified specialists, then there is a serious lack of them in the country”, - emphasizes the co-chairman of the Republican Confederation of Entrepreneurship.
He also notices that Belarus didn’t adapt and didn’t create facilities for normal and honest competition in the country, while at the same time we have opened the way for the Common Economic Space and WTO. “Of course, it won’t have a positive effect on the Belarusan market, but we are awfully unprepared to these changes. Belarus is like an AIDS patient – we don’t have any “inoculations” on this topic whatsoever”, - notes Marhelau.
According to his words, few Belarusan entrepreneurs give positive evaluations to the old year of 2012, “because for many negative tendencies are growing, first of all in manufacture and building. But there are other kinds of business which are quite well-off and attain results. Everyone ought to do his own thing. It would be inappropriate to generalize there”.
All in all, public associations of entrepreneurs continued the work they conducted throughout the previous years. Marhelau admits that the effectiveness of this work is somewhat less than over the last years, but on the whole the result showed itself. The biggest result consists in the fact that we managed to attain additional reduction of tax with the basic tax system. The adoption of the Decree No.6 “On stimulating entrepreneurship in the medium-sized and small towns and rural communities” can be called positive. This document is aimed at the production development as well as improvements of conditions for the business activity in small towns and rural area.
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