OREANDA-NEWS. February 02, 2011. Belarus will reach a surplus of the foreign trade in goods and services in 2015, Prime minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich said at a meeting of the Council of Ministers.

The government is set to reduce the trade deficit in goods and services to a zero by 2014, and secure a surplus in 2015, the Prime Minister said.

“Unfortunately, the positions we are starting from are not the best ones. In 2010 we had the biggest ever foreign trade deficit. We need to redress the situation,” Mikhail Myasnikovich said.

The Prime Minister drew particular attention to the tasks that the head of state announced when speaking in the House of Representatives on 27 January. “As it was stated, gross figures are good. But what is needed is the economic efficiency of business entities, industries, and the entire economy in general,” Mikhail Myasnikovich said. Mikhail Myasnikovich believes that a drastic rise in labor productivity and competitive ability of products will help rectify the situation. Utmost attention should be focused on realizing the country’s export potential as the best indicator of the country’s economic competitiveness.

As regards the draft social and economic development program for 2011-2015 and the government’s draft action plan for 2011-2015, Mikhail Myasnikovich stressed that the tasks they contain are “very difficult to fulfill”. According to him, concrete algorithms of reaching the goals set out at the All-Belarus People’s Congress should have been suggested as part of the work of finalization of the social and economic development program. “They should have been laid down in the government’s draft action plan. The Council of Ministers has made it clear to the plan drafters that the action plan should focus, first of all, on how, with the help of whom and by what means we will meet the goals set out at the All-Belarus People’s Congress and envisaged in the country’s social and economic development program,” the Premier stated.