The government will stimulate domestic demand amid a decline in machinery supplies to Russia. Prime Minister Alyaksandr Turchyn said this during today’s report at the Council of Ministers to Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
“We already have operational data on economic performance in January. GDP stood at 98.8% (with a first-quarter forecast of 101.2%). A fairly good result was achieved in agriculture — growth of 103.5% compared with January 2025. At the same time, we did not reach last year’s level in industry (96.6%) and investment (88%). Both objective factors played a role — reduced demand in our key market, weather conditions, primarily affecting construction — and subjective ones, including the sluggishness of some managers, particularly in utilising allocated resources. The January results were reviewed by the government with the participation of sectoral ministers and heads of key enterprises. All tasks have been set,” Alyaksandr Turchyn said.
Against the backdrop of falling exports to Russia, the government has decided to increase spending on the purchase of machinery for Belarusian farms.
“With the consent of the head of state, we are implementing a large-scale programme to re-equip agrarians with domestically produced machinery. The main focus is on high-powered tractors and large-scale equipment. More than 2,500 units. More than 2 billion rubles have been allocated for these purposes,” the government press service quoted him as saying.
In addition, the government has developed a special credit product that will allow any business entity to acquire modern large-scale machinery on preferential leasing terms.
Turchyn also said that a task has been set to diversify supplies to the so-called far-arc countries and the CIS.
“The relevant task matrices for 2026 have been approved. In addition, we have assigned specific officials to countries (77) and regions of Russia (80). Personal tasks have been communicated to ambassadors in their host countries — from increasing supplies to creating assembly facilities. Strategic tasks focused on economic results have been defined for all those being seconded,” he said.
The Council of Ministers has adjusted export support programmes. The farther the market, the larger the support will be.
“We have revised export support instruments. In order not to focus on a single Russian market and to encourage exporters to seek new ones, we differentiated the size of financial support according to the principle: the farther the market and the more complex the product, the greater the budgetary support,” Turchyn said.
According to him, more than 630 production projects worth 10 billion rubles are planned for 2026. One third of them will be completed this year.
“To financially support new projects aimed at increasing localisation and technological sophistication of products, as well as tourism development, the government has launched special credit products at preferential rates of 6–7% per annum. At the same time, increasing the volume of investment financing has been set for banks as a KPI,” he said.
Turchyn also noted that the government is optimising construction in Minsk with a reorientation toward small towns and satellite cities. The regions are to build 650,000 square metres of rental housing for specialists, including 400,000 square metres under state orders. About 7 billion rubles are being allocated to the state investment programme.