Industrial modernisation poses new challenges

Workers at Gomeloboi factory [Gomel Wallpaper factory] have filed a complaint to the regional head and to the Presidential Administration about overloaded warehouses at the enterprise and its negative impact.

Recently, the factory underwent modernisation and purchased two costly production lines for vinyl wallpaper. In 2013 President Lukashenko launched a large-scale modernisation process (which de facto means replacing obsolete equipment with modern equivalents), which has not resulted in any economic improvements. Ahead of the presidential elections in 2015, the Belarusian authorities will increasingly resort to manual steering of the economy, without considering structural economic reforms, and will hold the heads of industrial enterprises responsible for social issues arising from the derailed modernisation in the country.