The Economy of Belarus

Belarus is a rather developed industrial country. The main industries include machine building, instrument making, chemicals, timber processing, textile and clothing manufacture, and food processing.

The country is known for its heavy-duty trucks, transport vehicles, and tractors. Belarus also manufactures computers, engineering equipment, metal-cutting tools, and such consumer goods as clocks and watches, motorcycles, bicycles, refrigerators, radios, television sets and others.

Service industries are industries that produce services, not goods. In the recent past, these industries were undeveloped in Belarus. Today, private economic activity in the service sector is flourishing.

Belarus is relatively poor in terms of natural resources. In the south-west there are small reserves of hard coal, brown coal, and petroleum. The country has large timber reserves. About one-third of its territory is covered with forests. Belarus does possess one of the world’s largest reserves of potassium salts around Soligorsk, fertilizer-manufacturing centre. More important are the mineral and chemical processing industries such as the “Azot” fertilizer plant in Grodno and the oil refineries in Novopolotsk and Mozyr. The country is a world leader in the production of peat. Peat is used as a mulching material in agriculture. In briquette form it is used as fuel.

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Agriculture of belarus

It accounts for about a quarter of Belarus’ economic output. Belarus has a large amount of farmland. But a short growing season and a lack of fertile soil make farming difficult. Most of Belarus has soils of only moderate fertility, but the better- drained uplands can be productive with fertilizer application. Considerable areas of the swampy lowlands have been drained since the late 19^th century.

Most of the country has mixed crop and livestock farming, with a strong emphasis on flax growing. The country’s principal crops are potatoes, grains (especially wheat, barley, oats and rye), flax, fruits, sunflowers, vegetables, and sugar beets. Nearly 60 per cent of the country’s total land area is cultivated. Arable land accounts for about 30 per cent of the country’s land uses, and meadows and pastures account for 15 per cent. The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station contaminated much of the soil in southern Belarus, reducing the country’s total area of arable land by more than 10 per cent. Livestock breeding is another main component of agriculture. Cattle, hogs, and sheep are the most important livestock raised in the country.

In 1993 private farms began to appear. But these farms included only a tiny percentage of farmland. New laws called for the breakup of unprofitable government farms and for more aid to farmers who wished to strike out on their own. Nevertheless, the transition to private farms proved to be slow and difficult.

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Foreign trade of belarus

Belarus proper consumes only 13 per cent of the goods produced. A great amount of goods produced by Belarusian industries and agriculture is oriented towards the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries’ markets. Russia, Poland, and Ukraine remain the republic’s main trading partners, with trade increasing with Germany and Italy. Belarus also conducts trade with Austria, China, Great Britain, Lithuania, Switzerland, the United States of America and other countries.

Belarus exports transport equipment (mainly tractors and trucks), machinery, refrigerators, television sets, chemicals, potassium fertilizers, energy products, and meat and dairy products. About 60 per cent of Belarus’ exports go to former Soviet republics. The major exports include tractors to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and many other countries.

The nation’s major imports include petroleum, natural gas, industrial raw materials, textiles, rolled metal, rubber, paint, sugar, and some consumer goods. Fuel is Belarus’ largest import expenditure. Russia, which supplies most of the country’s fuel imports, is the most important trading partner.

In 1992 Belarus became a member of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

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