Leanid Zlotnikau: Russian embargo is a great opportunity to fish in troubled waters

There already exists confusion; however, it will become even stronger in 2015, when EEU is to start. Putin is, actually, burying his own brainchild.

In result of the negotiations between Belarus vice PM Mihail Rusy and his Russian counterpart Arkady Dvorkovich until the end of this year Belarus promised to increase delivery of goods to Russia by 15-50 per cent depending on the kind of production. These are serious figures, especially considering how full is market with imported production. But Rusy promised to prevent re-export of Belarusan production disguised as Belarusan goods.

- The question with export and re-export is very complicated due to a number of circumstances, - noted the economist Leanid Zlotnikau in the interview with the EuroBelarus Information Service. – What we define as Belarusan production in general? After deep processing of raw materials from the West and high value added, the product is already defined as local. However, we still have discrepancies about this in regulatory documents of Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan, which are in one economic union.

According to Zlotnikau, the most serious issues will arise from the supplies of pork, as “we don’t re-export beef and milk products, shrimps and apples are not that important for our trade and can be easily neglected”.

- Over the last few years we have imported about 112.000 tonnes of pork, and re-exported 60.000 tonnes of it to Russia. But the following situation can happen: we import pork from abroad, eat it, and supply Russia with the pork that was produced in Belarus. It seems a legal variant; however, it is very unclear and speculative, so it is hard to say what will really become of it.

- Won’t you face the deficiency in the increase of delivery of goods that was promised to Russia?

- It is difficult though possible to increase supplies of goods by 10 per cent when it comes to beef. But when it comes to the increase of supply of beef and milk at the expense of increased production – it is impossible. However, it seems that everything goes this way – decrease of consumption at the domestic market accounting for the increase of people’s income.

- How does all this correlate with the common economic space?

- It is unclear what is to become with EEU in the future. We will completely enter the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015, and in this case it is the EEU bodies that take all decisions regarding export and re-export. As a general rule, Putin didn’t have the right to decide it on his own; but he decided to make all this mess. It all looks like one big confusion, and we’ll see who will manage to fish in these troubled waters. But the opportunities for cheating are great! Let’s wait and see, shall we?