PM: Belarus’ economy has doubled over past 20 years

The Belarusian economy has doubled over the past 20 years, with the country’s primary strategy being to ensure a systematic and quality growth of GDP, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said in an interview to Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA has learned. Speaking about the economic indicators, which the country has achieved, the prime minister said that GDP growth was among the crucial ones, and explained what it meant. “In a common language, this term refers to the value of all goods and services produced in the state. The more we produce, the more we consume, and therefore, the higher the level of people's incomes, is. It is actually an integral indicator - one of the most important indicators - of economic development. The growing GDP means the country is developing,” Roman Golovchenko said. He cited a few examples. For instance, if builders dig and then fill up a hole, they get paid for both jobs, and GDP increases, but there is no progress. If a female client of a male hairdresser pays him for his services every month, and then they get married, GDP will fall by the amount the woman used to pay for her haircut to her husband. “GDP growth can be stimulated. For this purpose, a whole arsenal of means is used, and the state has them - from increasing budget spending to, for example, liberalization of regimes, tax cuts and so on. Its growth can be stimulated by any means, including emission. But it will have no weight, no impact, if such growth is accompanied by inflation. Accordingly, additional revenue will be eroded by inflation, which means people will not feel any improvement in living standards,” the prime minister emphasized. According to Roman Golovchenko, Belarus is doing its best to develop the economy systematically and stick to quality growth. “We consistently advocate for quality and balanced growth of the economy. We have increased our gross domestic product by 2.3 times since 2000, that is for 24 incomplete years. It reached Br216 billion last year. That means our economy has doubled over the past 20 years. This year we are also set to ensure growth above the planned parameters. It is very important that it is accompanied by the growth of household incomes. The main sectors are growing - industry, agriculture, construction, trade. We can state that the IT sector has recovered. Following long, slow decline the situation has stabilized, we can see very positive changes in the IT sector,” Roman Golovchenko said. The prime minister also took note of the growth of real wages. “Wages have grown by 13%. This is adjusted to inflation, which is also kept within the forecasts,” Roman Golovchenko said.