Belarus to be cautious about raising public sector salaries - deputy PM
MINSK. Oct 20 (Interfax) - Belarus' government will be in no hurry to raise public sector salaries in order to avoid a vicious circle where higher wages fuel inflation and that latter leads to new wage raises, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Rumas has warned.
"We all want to get much higher wages, but where would they come from if the business community doesn't pay taxes on their effective performance and the state is then unable to channel them into the budget?" Belarusian media quoted Rumas as saying at a meeting of the National Council for Labor and Social Affairs.
"It must not be allowed to happen that, after price rises, wages should rise, that people should buy goods and foreign currency with their higher wages and then the prices would go up again, and again wages would have to be put up," Rumas said.
"We should be patient in this difficult period," he said. "Today confidence should be instilled in all market participants, people, enterprises, that the government has the will to curb these processes."
Rumas described inflation in Belarus as "a disgrace for the government" and added that the government is "fully aware of its responsibility for the situation that is in place and can see its causes."