Over the last four years Belarus has injected $30 billion in modernization, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview to the Serbian mass media on 9 June, BelTA has learned. The Belarusian leader emphasized that Belarus focused on the economy not during the global meltdown but some two decades ago. “We faced the problems Serbia is having today. Virtually all companies were in dire straits. We had no foodstuffs. Today we earn $7 billion on food exports,” the President said. “For example, our neighbors, and probably Serbia as well, found a way out of the situation and divided the national wealth. They decided to privatize everything, divide, give away, cut into pieces… We did not follow this path. We were not against the sales of our companies, their reincorporation into joint stock companies, privatization. But every seller seeks a better deal. A higher price is paid for a fully functioning company, a company that operates and produces goods. Therefore, we chose to grow our companies, make them viable and producing goods which are in demand on the international market,” the head of state noted, adding that all the surplus funds in Belarus are reinvested in the economy. “For the past four years of the ongoing five-year period which completes next year we have already invested $30 billion in the modernization of our industry. These are huge resources for our country. Considerable funds were invested in the previous years as well. I believe that over the last two decades we have injected some $120-130 billion in our economy. This means new equipment, upgrade of companies that are able to compete on the international market,” the head of state noted. The President stressed that the Belarusian economy is export-oriented, hence highly dependable of foreign markets. “The main thing is that we have been developing our economy. We avoided that scale of corruption which accompanies mass privatization and division of the national wealth. Thanks God we had peace and stability. This is the main thing,” the head of state underlined.
Written by belta.by
