Who Did It?
- 7.07.2025, 16:27
Belarusian factories should be "launched" again.
Belarusian factories are doing so well that the penultimate Minister of Industry held office for a year and three days. The new one promised that it would be even better from now on. A week ago, appointed head of the Ministry of Industry Andrei Kuznetsov said that it was necessary to solve a couple of small problems - to unload warehouses, pay off debts, return receivables and find new markets. In short, it's just necessary to launch factories, writes planbmedia.io.
Except for a trifle
Everybody knows that Belarus has excellent factories. Such factories are a godsend to everyone. It's just that Belarusian factories now have some minor temporary difficulties to overcome.
"It is, of course, the unloading of warehouses that exist today, it is, of course, the return of accounts receivable to our country, it is, of course, the timely payment of accounts payable," Kuznetsov said in an interview with Belarusian television on Sunday.
It's impossible to say that Belarusian factories did not have these difficulties before. It's just that recently the difficulties have become more difficult, and it's worse to overcome them.
As of June 1, stocks of finished products in the warehouses of Belarusian enterprises amounted to 83.4% of the monthly output. As early as May 1, the stocks were less than 80 percent, while at the beginning they amounted to just over sixty.
And this is despite the fact that the monthly output, unlike the stocks, did not grow. Over five months, the volume of industrial production in Belarus grew by only 1%. But the symbolic one percent growth is a consequence of inertia. In May, industrial production decreased by 0.6%.
Production is shrinking, while the stockpiles are growing, and along with them, the debts are growing. And not only the debts of Belarusian factories. Belarusian factories could forgive their debts. Worse, everyone owes Belarusian factories.
For a couple of years Lukashenko has been complaining about the fact that buyers do not return the money for the delivered Belarusian products. But complaints do not help for some reason. If at the beginning of the year the accounts receivable amounted to about Br80 billion, then on May 1 it rose to Br93 billion.
Debt of Belarusian factories, however, is even greater. On May 1, they rose to Br111 billion compared to Br96.6 billion on January 1. Profitability has fallen accordingly, and the number of loss-making enterprises, even according to the official Belarusian statistics, has increased by 15 percent.
And who did it?
And most importantly, it's absolutely unclear where the Belarusian factories got all these problems, if the Belarusian factories are so good.
"Our products are in demand, they are of high quality," said Kuznetsov.
And since the products are of high quality, they need to find some new markets. However, they have already been searched for. The Belarusian authorities started their campaign on the markets of the far arc a couple of years ago. However, they haven't managed to reach the intended goal yet. As Kuznetsov said about the Belarusian industry as a whole: "We are keeping up with the times, but we lack speed."
Last year Belarusian exports to the markets of the far arc grew by 36%. And if you count it in percentages, the achievements really turn out to be solid. Another thing is that it is better not to count these achievements in money. All Belarusian exports to all African countries are many times less than Belarusian supplies to Leningrad Region alone.
"We need to move to new markets, conquer them, master them," said Kuznetsov.
It's not very clear why these new markets have not been conquered so far. Perhaps because the previous ministers did not know the secret recipe. And the new minister does. But the new minister does know the recipe. To master the markets, these markets need to "offer what they need, not what we produce."
In this sense, the Russian market was certainly easier. It was possible to offer the Russian market what Belarusian plants produce and not to fill one's head with marketing nonsense.
That is why Russia accounts for 65 percent of Belarusian exports. At the same time, it reaches 80% for the enterprises of the Ministry of Industry. So earlier Belarusian factories used to sell everything to Russia without complaining. But now they are complaining. Sales in the Russian market are falling at most enterprises of the Belarusian industry.
"Because we see the situation where we have distributed our export market in the Russian Federation, well, there is such an economic situation," said Kuznetsov.
Discipline must be disciplined
What kind of situation, the Minister delicately did not specify. And there's no reason to. The Belarusian minister can't do anything about the recession in the Russian economy anyway. So the demand on the Russian market for the goods of the Belarusian industry will continue to fall.
And even the most optimistic Belarusian ministers do not hope to replace the Russian market with a long arc in the foreseeable future. Therefore, despite the wealth of elections, the new minister has not come up with any alternative ways to launch Belarusian plants.
"In general, I set a task for myself - it's still discipline. Of course, everything will depend on discipline," he said.
But, however, Belarusian plants have been launched by discipline before. And each time it ended badly. Sometimes only for the plants, but more often - for the entire economic stability at once.