Lukashenko's Economy Has Given A Distress Signal
- 20.06.2025, 18:10
The country is bringing back price controls.
The relaxation of price controls was very restrained, but even with it the authorities did not have enough patience for long. They held on for two and a half months. Already since Friday the government has returned full control of prices for meat, milk and sweets. Because the Belarusian authorities have already forgotten how to control inflation in other ways, writes planbmedia.io.
"Since June 20, 2025, in order to prevent speculative and unjustified price increases, the government will take control of the process of price increases by producers of meat and dairy products and confectionery," reported the press service of the Council of Ministers.
Since today, prices for these goods can be raised by no more than 0.3 percent per month. If someone wants to raise prices more, the increase must be agreed upon. Convince the responsible comrades from the special commission that it is absolutely impossible to live without this increase. Moreover, the restriction will apply to the whole chain, starting from producers and ending with stores.
"Now it is necessary to justify to the Commission the increase in prices for raw milk, pigs, cattle supplied for processing," - the press service reported.
That is, everything returns to what it was before. Before the decree on partial abolition of price controls came into effect in early April. We cannot say that liberalization was very generous even then. It affected goods occupying about 10 percent of the consumer market. But price controls were abolished for some meat, dairy products and especially sweets.
"Producers, who had the need to improve their financial situation, took advantage of this right," the report says.
A little bit of good
That is, a little bit of good. You had a chance, and if someone did not have time to use it, it's exclusively his personal problems. So Belarusian sellers and manufacturers have at least learned a valuable lesson. If prices for anything are suddenly out of control, they should be raised to the maximum at once. Otherwise, they'll change their minds later anyway.
Because the Belarusian authorities have learned to fight inflation by other means. As soon as the price control was weakened a bit, the inflation started to get out of control. June 1, price growth amounted to 7.1%, while the plan was 5%.
It's true that neither meat, nor milk, nor sweets were among the leaders of price rise. In April the prices for vegetables increased most of all. Including cabbage and potatoes, with the deficit of which the authorities have been fighting for months. The deficit is still mostly winning.
Probably, that is why the government did not risk to regain price control over vegetables. Instead, it decided to act preventively. So it's not in vain that Lukashenko advised not to eat meat and potatoes a few years ago. Potatoes have already disappeared, and meat, taking into account the price control and the scale of cattle deaths, is probably next in line.