Alex Kremer: Belarusians Imposed Tax On Support Of State Enterprises

The tax amounts to 10% of the income of each resident of the country.

According to the National Bank, the loan obligations of state-owned enterprises, for which they are unlikely to be able to pay on their own, amount to up to 14% of GDP, the head of the World Bank in Belarus, Alex Kremer, writes in his blog, officelife.media reported.

The expert sees the state enterprises as the main source of growth of public debt, because "whenever the enterprise continues to lose money, any credit, subsidy or unpaid debt should cover this difference".

Kremer also recalled that, according to the IMF, the total amount of state support provided to state-owned enterprises in 2015 amounted to 9.5% of GDP. In other words, the average Belarusian gave 10 kopecks from each earned ruble to support state-owned enterprises.

It is likely that in 2020-2022 the Belarusian economy will undergo a significant correction in order to reduce the gap between expenditures and incomes. This correction will be either planned and structured, which will be difficult, or it will be spontaneous and destructive, which will be even harder.