Meeting of the Council of Ministers

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko chaired a meeting of the Council of Ministers on 9 August to discuss the functioning of the country’s economy under sanctions and measures to overcome them.

“Today we are having a working meeting of the government. It is an important event, but not an emergency. It is an interim government meeting to take stock of the current situation. I would be happy to see us having a good conversation at the end of the year celebrating the achievements of a relatively small, an average European-size country which managed to withstand an unprecedented and unjustified pressure,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.

The President recalled the task for the government to secure economic results no worse than in the previous year. “Will we be able to perform at last year's level? After all, the sanctions are unprecedented for our export-oriented economy. After visiting different places and studying various problems, I became convinced that we can do it. Those, who do their best, work well today. Those, who let their hands fall, thinking that it will go away by itself, are wrong, it is not going to be like that. Hard work, seeking new supply chains and consumers of goods is the number one issue today,” the head of state stressed.

Aleksandr Lukashenko believes that the government and ministries are still not working at their full capacity. “We are having an interim government meeting today. We need to schedule a similar government meeting hosted by the President at the end of the year in order to take stock of our work. The task is the following: our performance should not be worse than last year’s. We should hold out whatever the cost. If we do not want to fight (everyone has children), if you do not want our children to take up arms to defend our sovereignty and independence, we must have a strong economy. This underpins stability in our society,” the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that everything starts with small and insignificant conflicts: “Some are poorer and some are richer. It all starts with distrust and envy, we are good at it, especially in Belarus. Then people take up a rifle, a gun and start attacking each other.”

According to the President, as soon as the Belarusian society loses its stability, the country will immediately get ‘help’. “They will quickly set us on fire. The whole country. I have a gut feeling that it will be worse than in Ukraine. We are facing a very serious situation. So far we have enough food to eat and clothes to wear, we have everything now. But we can lose it all if we lower our guard,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“Therefore, the economy is the number one issue. With a solid economy, we will work everything out,” Aleksandr Lukashenko is convinced.