How valuable is the latest lifting of US sanctions to Lukashenka?

The sanctions list contains more significant enterprises

The United States removed JSC Lakokraska and Bellegprom concern from the sanctions list.

BEROC expert Zmitser Kruk tends to believe that such a step is rather an intermediate stage.

"It's like, let's declare an intention to do something further, and with this, we'll simply fix some result so that it doesn't seem like there's no progress."

Therefore, the economist assesses such changes quite modestly. He estimates the effect of lifting sanctions from these two enterprises at only about 30 percent of what "Belaruskali" alone means.

"This SDN list (the main US sanctions list — NN) contains much larger and more significant enterprises for Belarus," Kruk notes.

European sanctions are more painful than American ones

As for "Bellegprom," according to Kruk, the situation there is slightly different, as it is a concern, and the participants of the concern are not automatically subject to sanctions.

"Therefore, this lifting of sanctions occurs rather without a direct effect on the woodworking industry. Of course, this also makes sense, but not as significant as lifting sanctions from a specific company," the economist explains.

Павялічыць

Overall, Kruk notes that removing a company from the American sanctions list does not mean that it will have a great impact on the company, as the overwhelming majority on the list did not have close business ties with the United States.

Therefore, the expert emphasizes that for Belarus, the lifting of sanctions from the European Union, rather than from the USA, which is on another continent, is much more important.

"Just as Belarus has almost no products that would be interesting to the US with such a logistical shoulder, technological imports from the US to Belarus, although significant, were not as large in scale compared to imports from the EU," the economist explains.

There will still be advantages

At the same time, Kruk notes that companies receive a certain positive effect from the lifting of US sanctions even if they had no dealings with the States.

"There is a reduction in the "toxicity" effect, when those who are not under American jurisdiction, out of caution, refuse such cooperation due to the company's presence on the SDN list."

Being on the sanctions list also significantly complicates dollar settlements; there may be additional difficulties in logistics and insurance.

"Therefore, the lifting of sanctions by the United States is rather the removal of secondary problems, which is also important for the enterprise. For example, with "Belaruskali," it is highly probable that thanks to the lifting of sanctions, "Belaruskali" was able to increase the price of its fertilizers in China relative to the market price."

Павялічыць

That is, after the lifting of sanctions, "Belaruskali's" bargaining power increased, which made it possible not to sell products at such a discount as before," Zmitser Kruk gives an example.

As for the return to Belarus of about 43-44 million dollars that were stuck in an American Citibank account, the economist notes that in state terms, this is a very small amount of money.

"It's even very strange that discussions about such sums are happening at Lukashenka's level," Kruk noted.

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