MINSK, 18 May (BelTA) – The financial state of organizations of the real sector of the economy is improving, BelTA learned from Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko at a session of the Council of Ministers.
Belarus' GDP growth rate totaled 102.5% in January-April. “The production sector demonstrated a good result – 111%,” Roman Golovchenko said. “Positive dynamics gradually takes shape in agriculture – 99.7%, 0.2 percentage points up from January-March. Wholesale trade increased by 6.1 percentage points while public catering gained 14.8 percentage points. These figures demonstrate gradual recovery from COVID-19 restrictions.”
In his words, the stock in storage is dwindling while industrial output is rising. The ratio of the stock in storage to the average monthly output totaled 59% as of 1 May, down from 61.2% in April.
“On the whole, the financial state of organizations of the real sector of the economy is improving. Net profit exceeded Br3.3 billion while we had a net loss of Br5 billion in Q1 2020. The sum of net losses of loss-making enterprises dropped by more than 10 times. The number of loss-making enterprises decreased as well,” the prime minister noted.
The situation on the foreign currency market in January-April 2021 is characterized by net supply on the part of commercial entities, with the surplus resulting from foreign currency sales and purchases close to $215 million. The government fully honored its commitments in foreign currency. The country's gold and foreign exchange reserves increased by $338 million in April to $7.3 billion as of 1 May. The Belarusian ruble continues growing stronger, Roman Golovchenko added.
