E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 1, 2012 - ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian)
Content:
Introduction
1. Basic trends of January
2. Chronicle of key events
3. Politics
3.1. Rabbit's friends-and-relations
3.2. To resemble an entity
4. Economics
4.1. About the pros and cons of the budget saving
4.2. The country of unrealized potential
4.3. In expectation of the rapid development period
5. Finances
5.1. Inflation is fraught with political side effects
6. Our forecast for February
7. From the IISEPS desktop
Introduction:
Dear readers!
You are reading another issue of the e-bulletin of "Infofocus". At the same time, it is not exactly a usual issue, but an anniversary one, the 120th, which means the bulletin has been uninterruptedly published for 10 years already! Although in 2006 the edition had to register itself as mass media of the Republic of Lithuania due to the severe political climate in Belarus, our readers have received the bulletin regularly during all these years. In future, too, we are going to exert every effort for it to continue being published.
It is rather difficult to analyze the January forecast as it concerned mainly the yearly tendencies. However, it is already clear today that the principle economic intrigue is going to hinge on the size of the subsidized support of the "real sector". It is real only on condition of financial nourishment from outer sources. Keeping the "real sector" afloat the authorities are simultaneously trying to solve the problem of their self-preservation. Thus political and economic actions are merging into a cause-effect chain from which it is virtually impossible to single out separate links.
Parliamentary elections are also going to make their contribution to the subsidized policy. The technology of "elegant victories" was fine-tuned long ago. Unfortunately for the authorities, it requires considerable financial expenses. Due to the reason they had to begin the year with increasing the minimal wage, the first class wage rate, benefits, grants and pension supplements for the old. Pressure on the National Bank on the part of industry lobbyists gained so much in scope that its managers had to wash their dirty linen in public at press conferences what they had preferred not to do before. Under such conditions the GDP growth by 5.5% planned for 2012 may become reality; however, it is unlikely that they will manage to keep inflation within 22%.
Development of unfavorable tendencies in the world economy justifies our pessimism concerning the above mentioned. In January the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank lowered their forecast for 2012. In particular, a decrease by 0.5% is anticipated in the euro-zone.
It is too early to estimate the first results of working under the Common Free Market Zone conditions, especially because in Russia January traditionally begins with prolonged holidays. However, holidays do not apply to the mole of history. It keeps digging in the direction of unification of numerous technical regulations and formation of supranational regulatory bodies, thus narrowing the space of personal agreements in which the "Belarusian economic development model" is only able to function.
IISEPS executive board
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