Lukashenka Orders To Recall Ambassadors Who Failed To Increase Exports Sufficiently

Here is the list of those concerned.

Heads of the Belarusian diplomatic missions, who did not cope with the task to increase exports, are scheduled to be withdrawn from service, Radio Liberty reports.

Earlier, Lukashenka stated that diplomats should engage in "promoting the sale of Belarusian products".

The decision is related to last year's decree of the dictator: he said that it is necessary to take responsibility measures against the ambassadors who do not cope with the task of "the growth of export to foreign markets".

"I and my colleagues received a lot of complaints in connection with the punishment that some received from the Foreign Ministry," - said First Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Andrei Yeudachenka. "You remember that we had about six or seven ambassadors, who were strictly told about the need to fulfill export indicators and reprimanded."

According to Yeudachenka, Lukashenka ordered to recall those ambassadors who "have not fullfilled the projected export targets without objective reasons in two years," and the government agreed with the potential recall. He says there are about ten such ambassadors at the moment.

Who could it be?

It remains unknown who exactly of the ambassadors did not fulfill the forecast indicators without objective reasons. But over the past two years, according to the Belarusian Statistic Committee, exports fell in 54 countries.

The volumes of foreign trade (both exports and imports) peaked in 2012, after four years fell by 45% (exports - by 49%). The fall occurred in all directions: with the European Union, with Russia and Ukraine, with the far abroad.

The absolute export volumes in monetary terms from 2015 to 2017 fell the most in the UK (-18%, -533.2 million dollars), China (-54.6%, -418.3 million), Latvia (-41.3% , -247.2 million), Azerbaijan (-47.3%, -135.2 million), Lithuania (-11.8%, -113.8 million), Brazil (-15.5%, - 80.8 million), the Netherlands (-3.8%, -44 million), Vietnam (-35.1%, -35.1 million), Indonesia (-34.8%, -34.8 million) and Slovakia (-33 , 7%, -33.7 million). In all these countries there are Belarusian embassies.

A sensitive drop in exports - by more than 20% and $ 20 million has also occurred in Italy, the Czech Republic, Turkmenistan and Egypt, where Belarus has embassies, and in Bangladesh, where the Belarusian embassy does not exist.

The exports fell by more than two-thirds (at lower volumes) in Sudan (-31.5 million), Tunisia (-10.1 million), Ethiopia (-9.9 million) and Uganda (-4 million), more than 90% in Myanmar (-31.7 million) and Iraq (-28.4 million). In these countries there are no embassies.