Alexey Bogdanov is appointed Minister of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade of Belarus

Appointing Alexey Bogdanov as the new head of the MART, Alexander Lukashenko noted: ‘We have a lot of problems in antimonopoly regulation, as in the post-Soviet republics. It is necessary to use antitrust levers in order to somehow suspend prices, keep them in an acceptable range. Realizing that our people are not quite rich, so that like this: let go of the prices, and everyone will live well, they (prices – a note) will fall by themselves… However, they do not fall. As I observe, they do not fall anywhere, especially in the post-Soviet republics. And anyway, I am watching Russia, they have learned how to regulate prices.’

Alexander Lukashenko stressed that the ministry and the trade sector as a whole are quite complex. ‘In any research of our society, people name problems that are under responsibility of your ministry. Therefore, the organization of trade and the economy are very interesting and quite complex spheres,’ the head of state said.

The President noted that in Soviet times it was somewhat simpler, and pricing was stable. ‘Now we have rushed into the market. People often complain that we have rising prices, high inflation. It really is. Market relations, so to speak. Today we realized that there are no market relations, we were given this idea from across the ocean by those who have a lot of money. And if there is not enough, you know – press the button, turn on the machine and print. It's easy for them to be marketeers,’ the Belarusian leader said. ‘That's why they are not landmarks for us. Although we cannot allow production to be stifled by price stability: prices have been set, enterprises are not investing in these prices, and they go down. There is a very fine-tuning and all this will have to be done.’

In addition, the Minister of Agriculture and Food of Belarus Ivan Krupko has been appointed Chairman of the Gomel Regional Executive Committee.