Chairman of the National Bank and former prime minister Raman Halouchanka, speaking to state media after the congress of the Federation of Trade Unions where he was elected as a candidate to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, stated that the contribution of his working group to shaping the 2026–2030 social and economic development programme was the primary one.
“We are undergoing a kind of exam. For the first time, the country’s five-year social and economic development programme will be approved at a session of the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly. Well, it so happened that I had the most direct involvement… by decision of the president I headed the working group that revised this programme, in fact substantially reworked it. And the version that will be submitted for consideration by the delegates is largely formed on the basis of the proposals of the working group,” he said.
Earlier, Alyaksandr Lukashenka had instructed the creation of a working group led by Halouchanka to refine the development programme for 2026–2030. At the group’s first meeting in early October, Halouchanka said it had been formed following an appeal from deputy chair of the Assembly Alyaksandr Kosinets, who presented “conceptual proposals.” The programme was updated by 1 November. Shortly afterwards, Lukashenka held a meeting on the document, noting that he had been presented with two versions.
“The Council of Ministers reports that it incorporated into its version all the fresh and useful proposals of the group. Its substance is 90% the same, only the form differs — this is the government’s view. Meanwhile, the National Bank (the core of this working group consists of National Bank specialists) insists that it is ready to converge with the government only on the basis of its own version of the document,” Lukashenka said at the time.
Today, as he discussed the programme’s content, Halouchanka again hinted at disagreements with the government.
“The programme includes, as we traditionally say, ambitious targets for the growth of household incomes, wages, investment, and everything else. These are the factors whose combination, or the results of whose implementation, should make our country better, people richer, and business initiative freer and more open. But it is important to see a concrete task behind the numbers that we need to solve.
And we tried to demonstrate, or highlight, in the programme precisely technological development and technological self-sufficiency. Because without innovation, without our own scientific and technical developments, without introducing the results of scientific research into production, it is very difficult to count on a qualitative leap in the economy.
We see the experience of many countries, including economically developed ones, which, lacking substantial scientific and technical potential and innovation, fall into the so-called middle-income trap, from which it is very difficult to grow out. That is, we will gradually grow and increase incomes, but we will hit a ceiling that is difficult to break through. And therefore, to avoid falling into the middle-income trap, we really need to make a significant innovative leap in the development of our country.
So I expect the government objectively understands the need for this movement. We have set quite serious parameters for increasing the science intensity of our gross domestic product,” he said.
Recently, after a meeting of the presidium of the Assembly, Prime Minister Alyaksandr Turchyn also commented on the programme. He said that the main priority is the realism of its goals and tasks.
“The most important thing is that all our goals and tasks be realistic. The prime minister must take the podium every year and report on the progress of implementing the social and economic development programme. Of course, we would like the majority of indicators and parameters to be met. These are not just numbers. Numbers for the sake of numbers are unnecessary.
We are solving specific problems of people. We would like that over the next five-year period many issues that have accumulated and concern citizens could be resolved, if not by 100%, then, let’s say, to a significant extent,” he said.