| e-Newsletter |
| Last update 2010-08-26 |
|
NEWS AND EVENTS |
4th Forum of Polish development co-operation
(11.08.2010)
CASE Belarus was invited to cooperate with Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs under organization of the 4th Forum of Polish Development Co-operation that will take place on 18th September 2010. The CASE Belarus is preparing an economic debate "Belarus - the challenge for the European development policy".
CASE Belarus would like to bring attention of the representatives of Polish MFA and NGOs to the specific case of Belarus which is the priority country for Polish foreign policy. Experts from Poland and Belarus will present results of the interenational co-operation with Belarus in creating and strengthening of the market economy. Moreover, experts will analyse the recent evaluations of the Belarusian economy due to the global crises and tensions in the relationship with Russia and provide recomendations for the Polish MFA to help the development of the free market economy in Belarus.
The topics of the four presentations and their speakers are following:
1) Belarus - the lost chance (the Belarusian economy in 1991-2009) - Aleś Alachnovič;
2) The influence of the development co-operation on the economy (the experience of CASE and CASE Belarus in leading the project in the CIS) - Sierž Naŭrodski;
3) Western and eastern aid for Belarus (differences between technical and financial aid of such organization like IMF or EBRD on the one hand and Russian or Chinese financial credits on the other hand) - Wojciech Paczyński;
4) The influence of the global crisis on the Belarusian economy (and recomendations for the Polish and EU development policy) - dr Uładzimir Valetka.
Moderator: dr Krzysztof Falkowski (lecturer of the Warsaw School of Economics)
Official site: http://www.polskapomoc.gov.pl/Forum,of,Polish,development,co-operation,1003.html
Comparative performance of Belarusian industries
(10.08.2010)
i) Six industries created in 2008 more than 2/3 of economic value added in Belarusian economy: manufacture of chemicals, whloesale trade, transport and communication, agriculture, construction and manufacture of refined petroleum products and coke. Evidently these six industries contributed substantially to overall economic performance in Belarus in 2008.
ii) Almost ¼ of the entire economic value was added in 2008 in chemical industry (manufacture of chemicals, chemical products and man-made fibres). We can stаte that comparing to other sectors enerprises in chemical devision invested in more profitable projects. This leading value-creating industry played then the most important role in Belarusian economy in 2008.
iii) Four sectors create no economic value and have negative EVA indicator: education, health, community, social and personal services, and, suprisingly, real estate activities. Such negative EVA indicates that either cost of capital for an industry is higher than return on capital (the firms are currently earning less than expected giving the their cost cost of capital) or capital invested does not create enough of value for specific investment projects. The first three mentioned sectors have clear "social" charakter in Belarus by receiving substantial governmental support and subsidies. We can state that these sectors and real estate operate "at the cost" of other industries.
iv) The most striking finding of our estimations is that the lowest EVA indicator among all Belarusian industries shows the division called "Real estate acvtivities". This can be explained by having a close look at the sector's further structure. According to NACE "Real estate activities" behind direct services of selling estate and real estate agencies includes also management of estate on a fee or contract basis, the services of numerous halls of residence. In Belarus the latter are simply maintanace services for households which is traditionally low-profitable and government-subsided. A governmental straight involvment in construction sector production, providing of preferential rates for housing construction credits and other economic peculiarities in Belarus have led to unexpected result that firms from a should-be profitable NACE class "Development and selling of real estate" does not create economic value.
International Conference "EU policies towards Belarus: Results and Perspectives"
(19.04.2010)
On March 19, 2010, Aleś Alachnovič, CASE Belarus' junior economist delivered a lecture about the last changes in the belarusian economy. The lecture took place as a part of the international conference "EU policies towards Belarus: Results and Perspectives" at the College of Europe in Natolin (Warsaw).
Alachnovič stated that the attention of belarusian economists and the media should be drawn not to the economic evolutions in Belarus but to the reasons of new shift in the economic policy of state. He explained that the negative tendencies in economy are much more visible than the introduced reforms. The belarusian economy is strongly dependant on cheap energy resources from Russia. With each annual rise in russian gas and oil belarusian enterprises are losing their competitiveness. Sooner or later Belarus will have to transform the economy due to economic disbalancies - high inflation, high current account deficit and the burden of high external debt. The earlier it starts the more favourable initial conditions it has.
The full text of the "Recent Evolutions in the Belarusian Economic System" is now available online.
CASE Belarus conference "Reforming Public Road Transport in Belarus"
(2.01.2010)
CASE Belarus conference "Reforming Public Road Transport in Belarus" took place on December 22, 2009. High level transport debate was attended by representatives of Belarusian Ministry of Transport, MinskTrans, unions of transporters, and transportation companies.
The conference has become the summarizing event of the technical assistance project titled "Fostering private participation in provision of public transportation services in Belarus". The project has been implemented by CASE Belarus in partnership with Union of Belarusian Transport Organization under financial assistance of Polish Minitry of Foriegn Affairs within "Polish Aid 2009" assistance program to Belarus.
The aim of the conference was twofold:
i) to present officially Privatization Concept of Public Transport in Belarus (in short, the Concept) - it was presented by three authors of the paper Dzmitry Babicki, Valancina Lavoncyk, Dzmitry Sokal;
ii) to discuss the state-of-the-art and development issues for public transport system of Belarus.
The long and constructive discussion was honorary managed by former minister of transport of Belarus Mr. Uladzimir Sasnouski.
The conference results and feedback have brought an important information for CASE Belarus, the Concept authors and future projects in this field:
1. All participants noticed the high quality of the Concept and work performed by the team of authors during the project in 2009. It was said that the Concept was "ready to implement" in Belarus without changes in legislation or it could become the fundamental paper for a new local transport law in the country.
2. It was unonimously admitted that the current system of public transport regulation in Belarus is not effective. The extreme necessity of reforms and privatization of the sector was widely supported.
3. The key issues duscussed were:
i) introduction of independent system of regulation through the institute of independent operator;
ii) vertical desintegration of state-owned transport companies;
iii) introduction of the system of transportation subsidies according to the rates indicated in routes contracts.
4. The hottest debate at the conference was connected to the issue of absence of fair competition at the public transportation services market between state-owned and private companies with high dominance of the first. Even directors of stated-owned companies supported the idea of privatization of the sector in order to increase the quality of services provided.
5. The transport companies representatives, specially those of the state-owned, argued for introduction of the system of routes contracts (currently not used in Belarus). It was proposed to the team of authors to create the methodology and calculate tariffs to be used in routes contracts in case the reform is undertaken in the country.
The proposals of the conference participants include:
i) to continue lobbing true realisation of the Belarus law "About Road Transport" in respect to having a really independent operators of public transportation;
ii) to organize and implement the pilot project of privatization of one of the state-owned trasportation companies, for instance in Lida town.
The conference gathered about 40 participants including representatives of Belarusian Ministry of Transport, MinskTrans, unions of transporters, private and state-owned transport companies, constitutional court, State Property Fund, Academy of Sciences, universities, think-tanks.
The issues of the conference and its results have been widely dessiminated in Belarusian media.
