BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

15/11/2007

Lukashenko says won't change course

MINSK. Nov 15 (Interfax) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that his country has averted a crisis.

"I must say again that we are not going to change the course we have chosen. There is absolutely no crisis in the country," Lukashenko said in Minsk on Thursday during a discussion of personnel-related issues.

"But there was an objective reason for the situation to become critical. We needed to pay $2.5 billion for oil and gas. It's difficult to imagine any economy withstanding such a blow," Lukashenko said.

"It was an unfriendly step from our Russian brothers. But we have lived through these years and have not collapsed," the Belarusian president said.

The economic task set before the country in early 2007 was only partially fulfilled, leading to a trade deficit despite the current huge demand for Belarusian products, he said. "Especially, agricultural and industrial products. Who is not letting you produce and sell more? Nobody. Who is not letting you set a somewhat higher price for these products? Again, nobody," the president said.

Belarus "does not need world prices - we are still far from them," the president said. "The population, certainly, understands that the increase in the price of milk, bread and other goods is occurring not because we lack products, but because prices have risen in countries around Belarus," Lukashenko said. "If goods in Russia cost more than twice what they cost in Belarus, then the situation of seven or eight years ago, when everything was taken out of our country, will happen again." "Food products are already going out. They are purchased here to be resold in Russia," Lukashenko said. "Prices elsewhere in the world, in Europe, have also risen," he added.

The rise in prices in Belarus must be offset through higher pensions and salaries for people, the president said.

Source:

http://www.interfax.com/3/336106/news.aspx