Belarusian economy abandons hopes for growth in 2016

According to the IMF forecast, Belarus’ GDP is expected to decline by 2.2% in 2016. The forecast for 2015 has been revised downwards – GDP is expected to shrink by 3.6% instead of 2.2% according to April forecast. The deterioration is due to the slower pace of economic recovery in the developing countries with a view to preserving the current level of oil prices. In the near future investment in fixed assets will curb, household incomes will continue to fall, competition for jobs will increase, and inflation somewhat decline due to lower consumer demand. The current account deficit of 4.3% of GDP requires a search for external funding sources to service the public debt, since Belarus does not have sufficient domestic resources to service her debt.