In January-May 2007 Belarus’ GDP grows by 9%

In January-May 2007 Belarus’ GDP grew by 9%. As BelTA was informed in the presidential press service, on June 12 President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko met with Prime Minister Sergei Sidorskiy to receive his regular report on the main indices of the performance of the national economy for the five months of the current year. Belarus’ economy has been successfully settling the problems that occurred at the beginning of the year. In January-May profitability of companies made 12.6%; this index meets all the projections. The industrial and agricultural output has increased as well. “The growth of investments in the country’s economy is still at the level of 20-22%. For the five months of the current year over Br6 trillion was injected in the economic sector. Belarusian companies purchased machines, mechanisms and equipment worth of more than Br3 trillion. These are good indices,” Sergei Sidorskiy said. For the five months of the current year Belarusian construction organizations built almost 2 million square meters of housing. On the whole, 4.7 million square meters of housing will be built this year. The President confirmed his demand to build up to 70% of new housing for those who need to improve their living conditions. The Belarusian head of state was also informed about readiness of farm machines for the forthcoming harvesting campaign. The President of Belarus set a task to completely provide agricultural companies with fuel during the campaign. Belarus has been taking all necessary measures to conduct the campaign in the shortest possible time. Sergei Sidorskiy reported about the fodder storage process. At present the volume of haylage stored up has exceeded last year’s period four times: the reserves reached 3 million tons. The work on cutting grass has been speeded up. The Prime Minister assured the President that the Government will stabilize the foreign trade situation by the end of the current year. Today the Government cannot cope with the task and reach a foreign trade surplus. There are subjective and objective reasons for that, Sergei Sidorskiy said. In particular, in the current year Belarus sells less oil products and should pay $1 billion more for gas compared to 2006. The President of Belarus tasked the Government to boost export in order to compensate for these losses. The export growth should exceed import growth by no less than 5%. The main goal of the Government, local bodies of authority and economic entities is to reach a foreign trade surplus. Moreover, the Belarusian head of state was informed about the completion of reconstruction of the Summer Amphitheatre in Vitebsk. In the near future a special commission plans to accept the facility. The main concert stage of the country will come fully on stream according to the schedule. The President also examined the schedule of construction of a newsprint mill in Shklov and instructed the Government to take all necessary measures to save the funds by applying latest construction technologies. The Prime Minister assured the Belarusian head of state that in November-December 2007 the mill will be sent into operation.