Most economic sectors unlikely to cut costs by 25% in the short term

According to the National Statistics Committee, in 2015, production costs reduced by BYR 7 per BYR 1000 or by 0.8% as compared with 2014. In some branches of industry and agriculture, the level of costs was critically high (over BYR 900 per BYR 1000 of output), the bulk of cost reduction was due to lower depreciation and containment of labour costs. Most economic sectors are unlikely to meet the requirement to reduce costs. In oil refining and electric power production, the cost reduction is only possible due to the fall in prices for imported raw materials. Only economic sectors with high proportion of labour costs in the overall costs (retail, IT, banks) are able to reduce costs significantly, which however is likely to deteriorate the quality of the service. In industry, cost reduction is possible within 10-15%, due to a reduction in the cost of purchased raw materials and a reduction in corruption during procurement.