Expert on growth of Chinese investments in Belarus: our economy overcame all the consequences of sanctions

The growth of Chinese investments in Belarus suggests that our country has successfully overcome the consequences of the sanctions imposed against us – as stated by political scientist Yuri Shevtsov in his talk with Alfa Radio

Earlier, Belarus’ First Deputy Economy Minister Yuri Chebotar said that Chinese investments in Belarus in 2022 grew by almost 80 percent.

“It’s a sensation. But I must say that the sensation is not only in China. The fact is that Middle Eastern investment has also grown. This suggests that today our economic bloc has coped with the consequences of sanctions and the consequences of everything that is happening around the Ukrainian war. What we faced was supposed to destroy our economy. However, we managed to reorient ourselves from the European market and from transit through, e.g., the Baltic States and Ukraine to other regions in a short time,” said Yuri Shevtsov.

In this regard, he also recalled that in January-May 2023, Belarus’ GDP increased by 0.9 percent compared to the same period in 2022.

“This means that, in general, our economy has coped with the consequences of the sanctions strike and everything else related to the war. Belarus’ economic bloc and its economic strategy proved to be successful. The second point is that since such investments are coming to us, it means that these countries – primarily China and the countries of the Middle East – assess the prospect of drawing Belarus into the war as not the highest. Otherwise, they would not have carried this money here,” the political scientist noted.

According to him, China hopes and, apparently, gives guarantees to its investors that Belarus will not be dragged into a major war.

“Meanwhile, I want to note that Russia is also on the rise. This means that both Russian and Belarusian policies have been effective in countering sanctions pressure and other consequences of the war. If there was no Union State and an alliance with Russia, we would now have the same war as in Ukraine. A war on our territory would be part of a larger war in the region between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea,” the expert summed up.