In October of last year,

Lukashenka

was outraged by the rise in prices and forbade them to be raised.

The government introduced strict regulation of price growth.

Let's see how they have changed during this time.

Price regulation has been in place in Belarus since October of last year: stores can raise them only with the permission of officials.

Last year, hundreds of people were fined for unjustified price increases.

However, prices continued to rise.

In February of this year, compared to January, prices rose by 1.3% (for food products - by 1.1%, non-food products - by 0.5%, and services - by 2.7%).

The price of vegetables increased the most – by 10.6% for the month.

Tourist services went up by 8.8%, housing and utilities – by 6.6%, alcohol went up by 4.6%.

How prices rose during tough regulation

Lukashenko banned price increases on October 6 of last year, and already on October 17, the government explained how prices for new goods can be increased.

The government last clarified the price increase mechanism in February.

We looked at how much some products cost in October of last year, according to Belstat data, and compared them with the current average prices in the popular "E-delivery" service.

The growth in 5 months was as follows:

  • Tomatoes +22%

  • Milk + 21.9%

  • Pork +14%

  • Apples +14%

  • Peppers +13.7%

  • Beef +9%

  • Cucumbers +2%

  • Flour +2%

  • Eggs +0.99%

Who and how were punished for rising prices

Over the past year, 800 people were subject to administrative fines for rising prices, 35 trade facilities suspended their work.

Such figures are provided by the State Control.

KDC made 3,000 inspections and during 65% of them inspectors discovered some violations.

For raising prices, they were punished not only by administrative but also by criminal cases.

For example, the director of a store in Mogilev was sentenced to two years in prison with a suspended sentence for raising the price of cheese by 26 kopecks per kilogram.

According to the court, in this way he "undermined the authority of the authorities".

Two more verdicts in criminal cases for raising prices were handed down in Lida and Baranavichy.

In both cases, store representatives were sentenced to two years suspended for "exceeding authority."

"Prices wouldn't have risen much anyway"

According to Anastasia Luzgina,

an expert at the Beroc research center,

prices would have slowed down this year even without state regulation.

This is due to global trends.

"World food prices are decreasing compared to 2022.

Energy sources are becoming cheaper, the incentive for price growth is reduced.

In Belarus, domestic demand is low, this does not provide an opportunity to stimulate price growth.

Prices by themselves would not grow much anyway.

However, annual prices will decrease until the summer, but after that there are risks of price pressure, because the government made a forecast of GDP growth, and this can be achieved by increasing wages, demand and what will put pressure on prices," says Anastasia Luzhina.

The expert adds that the prices for the year are gradually decreasing, if we take February of last year as an estimate until February of this year.

At the same time, some prices are rising "because of the seasonal factor".

Services have become more expensive, because "the state does not regulate their prices."

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