29 March 2024, Friday, 1:03
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Lukashists Fall Into Tough ‘Metal’ Trap

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Lukashists Fall Into Tough ‘Metal’ Trap

BSW headed for the bottom.

Recently, the phrase ‘we reached the bottom, but someone knocked from below’ is more and more suitable when speaking about the Belarusian regime. You can not throw a stone without finding more troubles: either the economy is still not recovering contrary to the orders of the Lukashists, or the partisans are threatening and even enterprises are forced to stop.

It's still possible for the Lukashists to attribute all the economic problems to the Western sanctions, which "strengthen" and "temper" the Belarusian economy, then things have been very bad with enterprises over the past 10 years. One such example is the once patron of Zhlobin's entire infrastructure, the Belarusian Steel Works (BSW). It has ridden off into the sunset.

A serious decline began at the plant even before the start of the full-scale war. According to the latest data provided as of 2020, the BSW earned 34,000 Belarusian rubles in net profit, which is a disaster for an enterprise that employs 11,000 people. Well, the total debt to creditors at that time was 3.6 billion rubles, which actually puts an end to all the activities of the plant.

The other day, the BSW workers informed me that a serious problem arose with the loading of hardware shops at the production area. The range of products manufactured in hardware production shops includes metal cord and bronzed bead wire for reinforcing car tires, as well as brass wire for reinforced high-pressure hoses. Also, the product range of hardware production includes welding wire (copper-plated and non-copper-plated), spring, reinforcing, spoke, nail and general purpose.

Almost the entire enterprise suffers because a complete technological cycle has been created at the BSW, as full-cycle production, and the metal goes through a complex cycle of various metamorphoses (melting, etching, chemical processing, drawing) before the hardware shop. That is, with a low output of the shop by the final product (hardware), the load on steelmaking and rolling production is reduced, from where the wire for the final product of the steel cord is obtained. Also, the entire complex of workshops are lacking a production cycle. In fact, the problem affects the entire enterprise due to the complexity of this chain and the full interaction between shops.

At the moment, 300 steel wire workers have been transferred to other industries due to lack of workload, and another 100 workers are being retrained to earn at least something for a living.

Few people know that the plant needed to be rescued even before the imposition of sanctions. The Lukashists developed a whole plan, which today can be officially declared a failure. Its essence was as follows: Belarusian banks discharge the debts of the BSW assumed by the Ministry of Finance, and part of the foreign currency debt, in the amount of 400 million dollars, by transferring it to a budget loan, converting it into Belarusian rubles and setting a repayment period up to 2050 inclusive. In fact, this is just a beautiful discharge of the debt, an attempt to make it less suspicious. Converting to rubles provides insurance that the debt taken in dollars will be reduced due to the growth of the exchange rate. That is, the 'appointees' admit their failure to manage, under which the enterprise will definitely not survive even after drawing up such plans.

The current situation and workload problems have no reason - it is a consequence. In fact, the BSW has already 'died' back in 2019, when the banks took on the debts of the enterprise, admitting its collapse. There is no longer any need to wait for a happy end, because that debt restructuring for 30 years was applied before the imposition of sanctions, and even then this period seemed excessively long. Now, when such prominent partners as Pirelli, Yokohama, Scandia Steel, Goodyear have refused to cooperate with the BSW, even a century will not be enough to clearly close all the debts, and not write them off to the people, as they used to do when practicing the 'Lukanomics' [the economic policies of the Lukashenka regime - Ed.].

Artsiom Chernikau, especially for the Basta Telegram channel

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