Uladzimir Kariagin: 90 % of Belarusan business is lumpen business

Over the last four years, despite ups and downs in the country’s economy, the number of Belarusan business-unions has basically remained unchanged. Why don’t entrepreneurs rush to unite?

Between 2010 and 2014 the part of business unions in Belarus remained almost unchanged, is stated in the research “Work of Business Unions as per the questionnaire of Small and Medium Business and promising development directions of this work”. The research was conducted by the IPM Research Center and is based on the questionnaire of 431 small and medium enterprises of Belarus in May 2014. “EuroBelarus” Information Service asked Uladzimir Kariagin, co-chairman of the Republican Confederation for Entrepreneurship, the Chairman of the Minsk capital union of entrepreneurs and employers, to comment on this data.

- Why didn’t the researchers notice the inflow of new members into business unions?

- Business unions in Belarus now unite the most progressive members of the society working in the sphere of entrepreneurship, and that is true both for small, as well as for medium and large business. However, the number of members in these unions isn’t growing, because the authorities’ attitude to the unions is very tough. Now the problem of surviving is very acute for our organizations; membership fees hardly cover rent and salaries for few of our professionals. Leaders of the union, including Aliaksandr Kalinin (Belarusan Union of Entrepreneurs), Viktar Marhelau (Republican Confederation of Entrepreneurship), and me are spending our own money. Many entrepreneurs don’t understand that what the leaders of business unions do is, basically, self-sacrifice and conflicting with the officials, who sometimes really represent enemies of our national economy.

Criminal structures also dislike our unions, as we stand only for legal and honest business practice.

- Many entrepreneurs have consumeristic attitude towards the unions, don’t they?

- Yes. 90 % of Belarusan business, i.e. the absolute majority, is lumpen business. These people don’t have ownership, they work with leased equipment and leased premises; i.e. they don’t feel that they belong to a certain class. But this self-conscience is well developed among officials with all the corporate morality, law on civil service, and officials’ solidarity. Entrepreneurs still don’t have that.

At the same time business unions inspire constructive dialog; they are actively building bridges of cooperation with the civil society, both in Belarus and beside its boundaries.

- How typical is the problem of new members’ inflow for the civil society structures in Belarus in general? Are business and civil society connected?

- Directly. The activity of our society is very weak and often suppressed. Public labor is not admired, and people who work selflessly with kids, youth, in ecologic, educational, and other spheres, are not appreciated. Lately I took office of the president of the Minsk Rotary Club. In Belarus we only have 3 clubs and 50 Rotarians. And recently I’ve been to Lithuania, a country three times smaller than Belarus, but with 49 clubs and 1200 Rotarians. This is reflection of people’s activity.

- What should we do to change the situation?

- We should form national business culture in Belarus; this is one of our tasks. Because it is impossible to build an independent state without civil society institutions, without understanding and vision of Belarus’ future. It is important to create self-regulated organizations, club system for Belarusan business. Each city should have an entrepreneur club, a union of entrepreneurs, as everywhere we can find interesting and unique people, whom Belarusan business mostly never heard about.