Expensive loans, low investment: Expert about partnership with China


No country in Europe is closer to China than Belarus, president Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on Thursday’s meeting with the representatives of Chinese mass media in Minsk on Thursday.

The Belarusian leader also expressed hope that the relations with China will be even more efficient and the inflow of investors from China would increase.

However, economist Leanid Zlotnikau believes that the partnership with China is of little benefit to Belarusian economy.

“Lukashenka declared China a strategic partner long time ago and now we can see the results of the partnership. They are as follows: our exports to China is four times less than our imports from China. Thus, China was of little help to our foreign trade balance,” the expert said.

According to him, China’s investment in Belarus is not massive. Instead, China provides our country with tied loans which were allocated to the modernization of some industries, road construction, etc.

“But modernization turned to be ineffective, and Chinese loans have been very expensive. Extending them, the Chinese partners insisted that Belarus buy their equipment, hire their workers, work together on developing projects. We paid for all the things as well as the loan interest. But Chinese investment is very small, it is far less than that of Poland. Therefore, we cannot say that China has implemented lot of projects in Belarus,” Zlotnikau sums up.

Belsat.eu

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