Last year net foreign direct investments into the real sector of Belarusian economy dropped by 75 per cent compared to 2011, according to recently release figures of the Belarusian Statistics Committee. The pretext for sentimental patriots to moan is another reason for state authorities to rack their brains. They have eased tax burden, extended territories with privileged regimes, and achieved impressive results in the World Bank's Doing Business ranking. But investors ignore the country with qualified, quite cheap and hard-working employees with opens access to the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union with its market of 170 mln people. Big foreign businesses may secure unique privileges and cordial greeting, but then expose themselves to significant risks.
Belarusian civil society organised a number of discussion events on topics ranging from cancer to media wars. Other initiatives included the promotion of the Belarusian language and examining radioactive mushrooms. The Liberal Club attracted 100 practitioners to its event on information wars in the media, including representatives of state and independent media. NGO Assembly gave awards to Civil Society Champions, among them Andrzej Paczobut and Valer Bulhakau. Mahiliou activists formed a “civic magistrate” to help citizens deal with local issues.
The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently presented a report named "Human Rights Violations in Certain Countries in 2012". The report blames 25 Western states of serous human rights violations. Belarus is trying to attack the West in the field where the Belarusian regime is aware of its own weaknesses. The frequent accusations of Alexander Lukashenka, multiple TV programmes and now the report are the main tools which the Belarusian government uses against the West to win an ideological war. As with many other parts of state propaganda, the accusations have little factual support or are deliberately misleading. But on the domestic level, they seem to serve their purpose well.
In response to the country's unprecedented reforms, the European Commission has recently proposed to reinstate EU's preferential trade for Myanmar. When this happens, Belarus will remain the only country deprived of EU trade preferences system because of labour rights violations. With historical changes taken place in Myanmar for the last two years, Belarus occupies discreditable ratings previously held by the South-East Asian country.
The Belarusian government has announced its plans to modernise the national economy. However, the content of the policy package is far from clear. Given the experience accumulated by Belarus and other transition economies, there are reasons to warn about possible traps that modernization policy could set, if implemented unwisely. The government has announced a new course for modernization to strengthen weakening economic growth. In October 2012, Prime Minister Myasnikovich emphasised that “modernization of the national economy is a priority”. When reporting to Aleksandr Lukashenka on 14 January 2013, Myasnikovich has been warned that the pace of modernization shall not be slackened. The target of modernization is apparently the state sector of the economy, which still produces about two-thirds of Belarus’ GDP.
Belarusians in their modern history saw two major economic crises. The first followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in early 1990s and the second was in 2011 when many thought the Belarusian economy would crumble. The 2011 currency crisis and inflation dramatically changed well-being of Belarusians. Consumer prices went up 108 percent within a few months. Although the effects of 1990s devaluation have been properly examined in the literature, the effect of the 2011 deserves more attention. A recent study of Kateryna Bornukova of the Belarusian Research and Outreach Cente 'The Impact of the 2011 Devaluation on Real Income of Belarusians' fills this gap.
The Belarusian authorities count on the country's economic growth without taking into account dangerous trends in the demographic situation and its consequences for the labour market. These conclusions appear in a study made by economists of the IPM Research Center, shared with Interfax-West news agency. "Intentions of the Belarusian authorities to proceed with large-scale modernization of public enterprises imply that accumulation of capital which formed the basis of the expansionary policy is still deemed to be a major factor of the long-term growth", the study says.
Belarusians win at international courts and get asylum in democratic states, but they continue to feel insecure afterwards and still remain in the Interpol database. The recent arrest of a Belarusian on Interpol’s wanted list, Igor Koktysh, by German police despite the activist's refugee status in Poland is yet another case of Belarus' abuse of Interpol rules. Igor Koktysh's story has everything that a good drama adventure movie needs: wrongful imprisonment, police raids, a struggle with the state machine in an international court and a reckless escape through the border.
If you ask a Belarusian about the most important national feature of Belarus, he will most probably mention tolerance. This opinion seems to be deeply rooted in mass consciousness. Lukashenka's regime often uses it in ideological discourse to prove that Belarusians have been peaceful throughout their history and cannot stir up any conflicts, internal or external. However, in 2012 the Institute for Economics and Peace ranked Belarus at the bottom of its Global Peace Index (109 among 158 countries), suggesting that Belarus actually belongs to the group of the least peaceful nations. Belarusian think tanks researched public opinion to understand this issue. The research showed that the Belarusian people can, in fact, be quite hostile to "otherness" in terms of cultural and identity matters. At the same time they are much closer to European norms when it comes to political and civic values.
Last week Alexander Lukashenka declared his interest in good relations with Western countries. His statement came against the backdrop of active contacts between Belarusian officials and their European counterparts in the past two months. Involved in these meetings were a director of a department of the EU External Action Service, a delegation of the Council of Europe, representatives of the Lithuanian foreign ministry, a delegation from the Swedish foreign ministry, and a Czech foreign minister. Two weeks ago, Lukashenka said at a meeting with US experts that Belarus seeks “normal” relations with Washington, as well. Though all these developments are far from a breakthrough in relations with the West - frozen after 2010 - they demonstrate that the Belarusian government is aware that it cannot just stick to Moscow. At the same time it does not display any haste in improving its relations with the West. It hopes that the time is on its side in the international arena.
Last month, police raided three gay club events in Belarus. It appears that the authorities have become increasingly nervous about the growing social activity of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, especially following the largest Belarusian LGBT initiative to obtain the legal status of an NGO. On the night of 11 January, about ten policemen, some plain-clothed, blocked the exits to Club 6A, the prime gay dance destination in Minsk, and took the personal details of over 100 persons present there. They said they were looking for a fugitive prisoner among the clubbers. The following day, the police spokesperson refused to provide journalists with any information about the reasons for and outcome of the raid.
Each time the Belarusian economy hits a bump experts start to predict a forthcoming full-scale privatisation in Belarus. The logic is simple: when the level of subsidies from Russia diminishes and foreign lenders refuse to extend new loans, then the only remaining option is to privatise state enterprises. But it is already 2013 and the properly remains largely in state hands. A recent study of implementation of the 2011–2013 Belarus State Property Privatisation Plan shows that each time Belarusian authorities make noise around privatisation they never mean a full-scale privatisation. They usually put on sale low-profit enterprises with ageing workforce and expect that investors will remain in the same sector without reducing employment.
Belarusian Minister for Education Siarhei Maskevich on 28 January 2013 expressed his hope that students will convert the Belarusian science "into the main factor of socio-economic and mental development of the country". But does the government really foster the progress of students' education in Belarus? The lack of academic freedoms, mandatory and old-fashioned study plans have become the main defects of the Belarusian higher education. While government makes certain steps to approach these issues, the progress is rather slow.
Belarusian civil society and NGOs engaged in a whole plethora of activities - from developing socially-oriented mobile phone applications to preparing books on organic farming. Socially oriented mobile applications: Mobile company Velcom under its contest of applications for Android gave the first two places to socially oriented projects. First place went to the application GreenMap Belarus, which allows finding on the map places of collection of different species recycling. Second place went to the mobile application in Belarusian, which allows identifying a user's location next to the object of historical architecture. The authors got respectively $5,000 and $4,000 awards.