OREANDA-NEWS. July 28, 2008. The Council of Ministers of Belarus will consider the socio-economic development of Belarus in January-June 2008 at a session on July 29. The session will be chaired by Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky.

In H1 the country met 15 out of 19 most important socio-economic development forecast. In January-May Belarus failed to restrict import of goods and services and to meet the volume of employment and GDP energy intensity targets. The agricultural production target was not achieved in H1 either.

According to experts, in January-June this year the economic growth was more prominent than in the same period 2007. According to the Statistics Ministry, in H1 2008 the GDP grew by 10.4% as against 8.4% in H1 2007. This is due to the fast-paced growth of the domestic manufacturing industry. In January-June this year capital investments were up 23.9%.

In January-May the financial state of the real production sector companies continued improving. The number of loss-making companies keeps on reducing.

In H1 the consumer price index growth was above the target which was due to the outside factors (increasing world energy, feed stock, food prices).

In January-May 2008 the foreign trade growth was well above the target. Despite the fact tat the export growth was 4.3% higher than import growth, the import growth was higher than export in absolute cost value. As a result a deficit of foreign trade in goods and services was up by USD 19.7 million over January-May 2007.