The louder and more often the possibility of devaluation is denied the more likely it is to happen, expert says

Russia is determined to equalize the export duties on gasoline and solvents. This is what Anatol Yankowski, the Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation said on 13 September. This issue will soon be brought before the ECE.

It means that free of charge profits from the supplies of solvents-diluents are over and Belarus has to say "good bye" to gratuitous 2-2,5 billion dollars a year, which come from the export of solvents-diluents.

How will it influence on Belarus' economic situation? Should the country wait for another collapse – the repetition of 2011? Journalist of UDF.BY had conversation with Yaroslav Romanchuk, economist of the Scientific Research Mises Center.

- It means that the Belarusian economy will be missing around one billion dollars over the next half year in direct foreign investments. The decision made by Russia makes us put on an agenda the necessity of tightening of the monetary policy. The national economy simply won't be able to ingest the amount of rubles that was printed over the past eight months.
We have to make a serious systematic reforms, which were delayed by government because of the establishment of the Customs Union. Russia has already joined WTO. The longer Belarus bristles up and resist, the harder it will be to make the reforms that are unavoidable anyway.

-How can you explain the increase of the average salary on the background of not getting one billion dollars over the next half year?

- Noone has ever frowned upon an extra billion in one's pocket. The money showering on top of the government's heads only made them more and more passive. I am hoping they will understand Russia's decision correctly and won't be upping the average salary to 500 dollars. There are no economic preconditions for this.

-What should we all expect in the nearest future? Will we face the collapse as we did in 2011?

Even Ms. Yermakova doesn`t exclude the devaluation. The louder and more often the possibility of devaluation is denied, the more likely it is to happen. Statistics says that we have such a safety net that it would let us keep the dollar at the rate of 8400 rubles in 2013. That is why both the government and bankers should stop acting as good magicians before Aleksandr Lukashenko and tell him the truth, even though it is bitter. When a person thinks that he is totally healthy and later learns about his 25 diseases, he may lose his head.