President bans prices increase in Belarus

There will be no commodity shortage in Belarus. Today a big meeting on rising prices was held in the Palace of Independence, which lasted for two hours in an extended format. The President demanded an answer to the question, why inflation is higher than the declared figures. The closest attention was paid to the Belarusian goods: why do the new figures appear in price lists?

The President noted: the exchange rate risks, long chains of suppliers and intermediaries, lack of strict control over the networks. All this can be avoided if one monitors the process and intervenes in time. The issue of prices affects everyone. Yes, the whole world is experiencing the objective causes of inflation. It's related to the result of sanctions, which disrupted the usual pattern of world trade (cost inflation, imported inflation). But the President requires dealing with internal factors. Why do the prices of what Belarusians produce themselves go up?

Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus: For 8 months of this year, the inflation was 13%, for the year as a whole, the government plans to have it at 19%. In other words, you want to increase prices for the remaining period of time. The National Bank and the government should have responded to such high inflation rates by strict containment measures. 13-14% is no good. Let's see how they respond. The growth will offset all our efforts to increase wages and pensions, the real income of the population. Today we need to get to the bottom of the reasons for this situation, both objective and subjective. I am waiting for suggestions. The task is to return to the level of inflation of 7-8%.

The President paid special attention to long supply chains. This artificially makes goods of any value (from food to industry) many times more expensive. The topic was raised more than once at economic meetings. And such speculations will definitely not cause goods shortages or unfair prices in Belarus.

Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus: "I do not understand what unscrupulous mediation is all about. It should not exist at all. The intermediary took an egg from a chicken, raised the price three times and sold it. If we have intermediaries in foreign markets, those who sell products must be in charge. MTZ must rule there, and not just give the tractor to an intermediary. By raising trade markups by hundreds of percent, we also raise the price. The manufacturer, the middleman, and the sellers are raising prices all along the chain. We spend a lot of money to support agricultural producers. But against the background of all these measures, milk, meat, cereals continue to rise in price every day. Eliminate the notion of "socially important products" from your turnover. It should not be divided like that.

The meeting turned out to be very intense: the President not only listened to the speakers. As a result, from now on any increase in prices is prohibited in the country. Exceptions must be agreed upon at the level of a minister or heads of regional executive committees. In addition, the presidential decision created a working group composed of representatives of the State Control Committee, trade unions, deputies, senators and experts of the Statistics Committee. They will monitor pricing and how the networks, suppliers and manufacturers implement the decisions to curb the cost of goods.