Europe did not help: Without Russian oil, the collapse of the Belarusian economy began
Belarus has replaced its “oil” deputy prime minister. Instead of Igor Lyashenko, the problematic industry will now be supervised by Yuri Nazarov, who previously headed the Bellesbumprom concern. Nazarov worked most of his life in the forestry industry and has no experience in the petrochemical field, but this is not the case - here the main decisions are made at a completely different level.
The meeting that took place the day before with Alexander Lukashenko showed that he is not going to deviate from the path of “oil multi-vector”. On the contrary, Old Man is ready to go even further. For example, put another loan on the shoulders of the Belarusians, who are already experiencing an economic crisis, for the construction of an oil pipeline from one of the Baltic ports to Novopolotsk, where it will supply more expensive, most likely, American oil. Economic expediency continues to be sacrificed to geopolitical maneuvers.
Lyashenko, most likely, was not dismissed for failures, although there were many of them. He was simply very unpopular and thus seriously undermined the authority of the authorities on the eve of the elections in an area that was extremely painful for the people. It was he who was considered responsible for the “penny strategy,” when gasoline prices at gas stations rose by a penny every week (that’s about 30 Russian kopecks, not that little), and just two days ago he was caught in an outright lie.
Last week, an official said that Belarus processed a million tons of oil monthly in January February, and on Monday Russian statistics appeared, according to which only 709 thousand tons were supplied to the republic, which is 76 percent less than in the same period of the previous of the year. We remember well the Norwegian tanker with 80 thousand, we got something else ourselves... Whatever one may say, more than a million does not add up, and the second one, apparently, existed only in the imagination of an official. In general, we will not feel sorry for the dismissed official.
As for the multi-vector nature of oil, not everyone now remembers how it began. And then the talk was only about the reluctance of Belarus to pay a premium of 10 dollars per ton to Russian oil producing companies. This is a little more than 2 percent of its price, which, according to the terms of the “tax maneuver,” was still 17 percent less than the world price.
In total it turned out to be 240 million. Of course, it’s unpleasant, as much as 0,3 percent of Belarusian GDP, but tolerable. Moreover, the reluctance to make concessions has already cost Belarusians billions, and only in January the country’s GDP collapsed by 1,9%, although last year there was a slight, but growth of 1,2 percent.
GDP data does not tell the whole story. If only because they reflect production, and Belarusian state-owned enterprises tend to work for a long time at a warehouse at a loss before starting to reduce it. But the statistics on foreign trade that appeared yesterday are more objective and much more dramatic.
In January 2020, the volume of foreign trade of Belarus decreased by 16,1 percent compared to January 2019. Moreover, both exports (by 16,6%) and imports (by 15,6%) collapsed. It is curious that the share of the Russian direction of foreign trade even increased slightly from 47,9% to 48,6%. At the same time, imports from Russia due to a reduction in oil supplies decreased by 28,4%, and exports increased by 8,6%. Despite the obvious crisis in relations, Russia does not close its market from Belarus, allowing Belarusian producers to somehow survive.
But the most shocking figure is trade with the European Union. With imports from the EU falling by 8,7%, exports to its countries fell by 47,7%. Almost double! You can shout “Belarus to Europe!” until you are hoarse, but this figure reflects the real prospects of Belarus in this very Europe if it refuses an alliance with Russia.
The year is just beginning, but Belarusians are already beginning to pay for the conflict between their president and Russia. Judging by the figures, this price will be very heavy - the economy could fall by tens of percent, and the social consequences may well be comparable to the early 90s of the last century.
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