{"id":91149,"date":"2024-06-17T14:23:26","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T11:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/91149\/"},"modified":"2024-06-17T14:23:28","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T11:23:28","slug":"lukasenka-acting-as-traveling-salesman","status":"publish","type":"longreads","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/91149\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0141uka\u0161enka acting as traveling salesman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Belarusian ruler has been holding on to a Soviet-style centrally planned economic system throughout 30 years of his rule. He travels abroad to promote and sell Belarusian goods, including tractors, mixed fodder and elevators.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\n Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka presents two Belarusian tractors to Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh on June 4\n <\/div>\n \n
\n (\u0141uka\u0161enka's press office)<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Salesman\u2019s mission<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka spent a few days in Mongolia earlier this month and stopped over in Russia\u2019s Irkutsk on his way back.

In the last few years, state propaganda has portrayed him as a global strategist, but he is more of a salesman.

“Let’s face it, our trade and economic relations leave a lot to be desired, to put it mildly,” he told the Mongolian president in Ulaanbaatar.

During the talks, he called relations between the two countries “brotherly,” complained about sanctions, and offered Belarusian tractors, cars, elevators and dump trucks.

Officials signed more than 30 agreements and contracts to boost trade, which amounted to $30 million a year, according to \u0141uka\u0161enka.

In fact, Minsk cannot offer much to Mongolia. Located 7,000 kilometers away, it buys most of its goods from neighboring China and Russia.

\u0141uka\u0161enka also promoted Belarusian goods during his brief stay in the Irkutsk region.

At the Irkutsk Aviation Plant, he called for implementing joint projects, encouraging management to identify new niches and start working immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meetings with governors, foreign leaders<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is more or less the way \u0141uka\u0161enka has conducted his foreign policy in the last few years.

He often visits Russian President Vladimir Putin, sometimes China or some friendly summits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, his everyday life is that of a traveling salesman whose warehouses are full of inventories, so he has to work hard to sell them.

The Belarusian ruler focuses his energies on Russian provinces and non-democratic countries in Asia, Africa and South America.

On June 10, upon his return from Mongolia, he received the governor of Russia\u2019s Voronezh province, Aleksander Gusev, in Minsk. The Belarusian strongman spoke about “a number of important areas of cooperation,” noting that last year’s trade exceeded $500 million. He announced a plan to boost the trade to $1 billion.

On May 27, visiting Altai province governor Viktor Tomenko was shown Belarusian agricultural machinery, MAZ and Amkador trucks, as well as a fodder plant. Belarusian officials urged him to continue buying Mahilo\u016d-made elevators.

On May 20, Sergey Nosov, governor of Magadan, flew 11,000 kilometers to Minsk to hear from \u0141uka\u0161enka that “mutual trade indicators do not reflect the potential.” Nosov was urged to buy Belarusian goods from industrial products to food, medicines and cosmetics, cables and transformers. \u0141uka\u0161enka expressed interest in buying seafood from Magadan suppliers at “reasonable prices.”

Such visits have been reported for several years after Belarus lost its Western markets in 2020, and then the Ukrainian market in 2022.

The governors of Arkhangelsk, Orel and Omsk provinces visited Minsk earlier this year.

As far as other countries are concerned, \u0141uka\u0161enka traveled to Uzbekistan in February and Azerbaijan in May.

In Tashkent, his talks with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev again focused on a billion-dollar trade target for the next 18 months. His press office reported the signing of an “impressive package.\u201d

In Azerbaijan, \u0141uka\u0161enka discussed possible contracts to rebuild Karabakh. Trade between Belarus and Azerbaijan exceeded 400 million dollars in 2023. The governments are set to boost it to $1 billion, \u201calthough not immediately,” his press office reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shift to East<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While opposition leader \u015aviat\u0142ana Cichano\u016dskaja keeps meeting with Western politicians to talk about political prisoners, support for Belarusians and sanctions against \u0141uka\u0161enka, the Belarusian ruler is selling Belarusian equipment, food and medicines.

It seems that he could leave these issues to ministries and embassies to deal with.

The Belarusian ambassador to Russia, D\u017amitryj Kruty, faces the task of boosting trade with Russian provinces. In October, he was appointed chairman of a commission for the export of Belarusian goods.

“There are no goods in Belarus that we can’t sell,” \u0141uka\u0161enka once said.

In March, Kruty publicly threatened to punish managers for failing to meet export targets. He was responding to complaints from officials that it was becoming increasingly difficult to sell goods in Russia, mainly because of tight competition from Chinese manufacturers.

However, in May, Kruty told RIA Novosti <\/em>that trade between Belarus and Russia hit an all-time high of $53 billion in 2023.

The Belarusian government has not disclosed data on foreign trade since 2022, after a range of countries imposed additional sanctions on Belarus for its involvement in the war. Nevertheless, it is already clear that the sanctions have taken their toll on the Belarusian economy.

In November 2022, Economy Minister Alaksandar \u010carviako\u016d estimated that the country missed out on $6 billion in revenue from exports to Europe. However, he added, almost 80 percent of the losses had been offset by exports to China and Russia.

In May 2023, First Deputy Prime Minister Mikalai Snapko\u016d said that the damage caused by the sanctions was fully offset by the eastward shift. A question mark is hanging over credibility of officials\u2019 upbeat statements. In the absence of official statistical data, it is impossible to verify their claims.

According to the National Statistics Committee, in the pre-war year of 2021, trade between Belarus and the EU exceeded $16 billion with a surplus of $2.7 billion for Belarus. Trade with Ukraine hit a record high of $6.9 billion with a surplus of $3.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economic challenges acknowledged<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If the damage caused by the sanctions has been fully offset by exports eastward, what is the point of \u0141uka\u0161enka’s Asia trips and meetings with Russian governors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


On April 9, he acknowledged that industrial giants were struggling. “The production of refrigerators, tractors, loaders and engines has dropped,” he told officials at a government conference in Minsk.

In Russia, “Belarusian manufacturers are losing their positions in goods that have traditionally been in high demand for their quality and reliability,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disappointingly, this is happening in the friendliest country, where local products \u201care inferior\u201d in price and quality, he said.

The Belarusian ruler said that sales in Asia, Africa and South America accounted for less than 20 percent of the pre-sanction year of 2021, noting that warehouses were full of products, with stockpiles of unsold goods rising by more than $100 million (23 percent) in 2023.

\u0141uka\u0161enka noted that Belarusian manufacturers were losing the domestic market to competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, although Belarus has a huge tractor factory in Minsk-based MTZ, farms purchased abroad more than a thousand tractors worth 40 million dollars in 2023 alone, he said.

The criticized the industry ministry for slow progress of re-equipment programs, expressing concern about corruption, a “chaos in the metallurgical industry,\u201d failures of equipment before the start of operation and a shortage of workers estimated at tens of thousands.

The meeting lasted for over four hours. \u0141uka\u0161enka threatened to hold officials responsible for failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has been doing this type of manual micromanagement and small-scale wholesaling for several years. Thirty years into his rule, the economic system that he has built needs his petty tutelage and steady hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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