The potential of Belarusian industry is great, but the work to promote products on foreign markets is weak, Belarusian Industry Minister Andrei Kuznetsov told the Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA has learned.
According to the minister, the negative results in the industry’s performance are linked to the economic situation among traditional partners, as well as insufficient development of new markets in distant countries, including in Africa.
“We see that the potential is great, but our efforts are weak. Therefore, we are strengthening our work in this direction. We are setting ourselves the goal of first clearing out warehouses, because this is working capital for our enterprises,” said Andrei Kuznetsov.
Problematic trends in the industry were discussed at a recent meeting of Belarusian President Aleksnadr Lukashenko with the government.
“Throughout the year, this crucial sector experienced a steady slowdown. In the second half, the output stood at 98.2% against the previous year, showing negative dynamics. January 2026 brought another 3.4% decrease. Half of the manufacturing industry is facing difficulties, or even worse,” the president said. “On our key Russian market, the Industry Ministry alone posted a $1 billion shortfall last year. What is even worse (and I warned the prime minister about this), they shipped goods there and left them there without payment. We are making the same old mistakes. This is already a crime. We are seeing a decline in the output of key goods.”
Along with this, there is an impressive growth in inventories – Br2.5 billion over the past year. “There’s effectively $4 billion (Br12 billion) worth of products sitting in warehouses. And in January 2026, we added another Br800 million. That’s the kind of work we are doing,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
In addition to this, nearly $500 million in export revenue is outstanding (overdue accounts receivable) from abroad.
