EMBASSY MINSK WEEKLY POL/ECON REPORT - December 07, 2007

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MINSK 001003 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM ECON ENRG KCRM BO SUBJECT: EMBASSY MINSK WEEKLY POL/ECON REPORT - December 07, 2007 ¶1. The following are brief items of interest compiled by Embassy Minsk. TABLE OF CONTENTS Civil Society -------------- - Opposition Activist Expelled From University (para. 2) - Lebedko Questions Prisoner Klimov's Health (para. 3) - Police Arrest Human Trafficker in Minsk (para. 4) - Local Entrepreneur Leader Briefly Detained (para. 5) - Entrepreneur Activist Audited Again (para. 6) - Activist for Disabled Critical of GOB Policies (para. 7) Domestic Economy -------------- - Consumer Income and Spending Figures Released (para. 8) - Lukashenko to Ban Agricultural Machinery Imports (para. 9) International Trade -------------- - Trade Deficit Rises (para. 10) Quote of the Week (para. 11) -------------- -------------- Civil Society -------------- ¶2. Opposition Activist Expelled From University Polotsk State University administrators December 5 expelled sophomore opposition activist Ekaterina Solovyova. University officials cited "academic failure" as the reason for the expulsion, despite her high academic standing. The expulsion comes less than a month after Solovyova was charged with acting on behalf of an unregistered organization and defacing a national flag. Solovyova will appeal the decision and her classmates have begun collecting signatures in protest. ¶3. Lebedko Questions Prisoner Klimov's Health Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the United Civic Party, filed a complaint December 4 with authorities and demanded an investigation into the health and living conditions of imprisoned activist Andrey Klimov. Klimov, a diabetic, has been serving a prison sentence at a high security facility and was recently hospitalized for treatment of various heart conditions. Acting Chief of the Interior Ministry's Department of Corrections Yuri Borinkov countered that Klimov's condition is "satisfactory," though he did acknowledge that prison administrators had seized food from Klimov. ¶4. Police Arrest Human Trafficker in Minsk Minsk police arrested a 25-year-old foreign citizen December 1 engaged in trafficking Belarusian women to the Baltics. Police arrested the man at a bus station while he was attempting to traffic two women aged 24 and 28 to Riga for sexual exploitation. 
¶5. Local Entrepreneur Leader Briefly Detained Police briefly detained Gomel-based National Coordinating Council of Entrepreneurs member Irina Kaminskaya November 30. Though she was released without charges after being held at a police station for two and a half hours, authorities confiscated 300 fliers in her possession publicizing an entrepreneur rally to take place December ¶10. ¶6. Entrepreneur Activist Audited Again Tax authorities and economic police initiated a surprise audit December 5 of a business owned by Aleksandr Makeyev, leader of the unregistered small business association For Free Development of Enterprise. The new audit comes days before a December 10 demonstration organized by the association, and just two weeks after the company's last audit, which tax authorities conducted before a nation-wide strike by market vendors. ¶7. Activist for Disabled Critical of GOB Policies Belarusian Association of Handicapped People leader Vladimir Potapenko held a press conference December 3 criticizing the GOB's policies regarding state support for the disabled. Potapenko asserted that the new law cutting social benefits would be unfairly detrimental to the disabled and should be reconsidered. Of 512,500 disabled people in Belarus, only 42,000 are officially registered MINSK 00001003 002 OF 002 with local social assistance centers and 72,000 do not receive any form of state support. Eighty percent of the disabled are unemployed. The association owns 170 enterprises that employ 1,747 disabled persons, though one third of the businesses are bankrupt. -------------- Domestic Economy -------------- ¶8. Consumer Income and Spending Figures Released According to the Belarusian Ministry of Economics, consumer spending per family increased 19.2 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2007. Belarusian family spending averaged 859,300 rubles (USD 400) in the period from July through September. On average, 41.3 percent of income was spent on food, 34.6 percent on non-food goods and 21.8 percent on services. Thirty-two percent of households had a per capita monthly income between 150,000 and 300,000 rubles (USD 70 to 140) and 38.9 percent of households had per capita incomes between 300,000 and 500,000 (USD 140 to 234). Households with a per capita income of over 500,000 rubles accounted for 23.8 percent of the population; almost half of these are in Minsk. ¶9. Lukashenko to Ban Agricultural Machinery Imports Aleksandr Lukashenko announced November 29 a ban on imports of agricultural machinery to begin next year, citing the large share machinery contributes to the country's growing trade deficit. The regime's import substitution plan calls for an increase of domestic production to replace the USD 200 million worth of machinery Belarus imports annually. Lukashenko also announced plans to introduce harsher penalties for managers responsible for producing shoddy machinery, blaming careless management for 90 percent of all defects. -------------- International Trade -------------- ¶10. Trade Deficit Rises Belarus' Statistics Ministry announced November 30 that the country's foreign commodity trade deficit doubled to USD 3.2 billion through October from USD 1.6 billion last year. The trade deficit with CIS countries grew 18.7 percent to USD 5.8 billion while the surplus with non-CIS countries shrank 18.1 percent to USD 2.7 billion. -------------- ¶11. Quote of the Week -------------- Chairman of the Belarusian Central Electoral Committee Lidiya Yermoshina, after declaring that elections in Belarus are no worse than they are in Russia, vigorously denying any similarities in the electoral processes of the two countries: "Belarus and Russia have absolutely different electoral systems. In Russia they vote for parties. In Belarus we vote for specific candidates. Any parallels drawn [between Belarus and Russia] are absolutely incorrect." Moore