OREANDA-NEWS. Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko admitted a poor financial condition of the country's industries enterprises and levelled criticism at the Ministry of Industry for overstocked warehouses and the growing share of Belarusian exports that are left unpaid by foreign customers.

In his words, the net profit has nearly halved, the number of loss-making companies rose 1.8 times to make up over 17%, the aggregate net losses increased 2.6 times up to Br4.5 trillion (USD 466.32 million). Inventories of finished goods exceed acceptable limits and remain at a very high level, the president's press-service said.

On Tuesday President Lukashenko held a conference attended by a lot of executives and senior officials who were tasked with supervising the companies affiliated with the Industry Ministry. Lukashenko noted that these companies account for 40% of the country's finished goods inventory.

“The government reports that the situation with inventories is improving; they claim that they have managed to reverse the situation,” Lukashenko said. At the same time, statistics suggests that the industrial output shrank by nearly 5%, the foreign accounts receivable increased, debts for manufactured and unpaid goods are on the rise. All in all, they reached Br118 trillion (USD 12.228 billion), which is equal to more than two average monthly outputs. “What kind of breakthrough is that if the companies do not get the money for the products they sold? The gap between the foreign accounts payable and the accounts receivable is growing and we still credit our foreign partners. Simultaneously we make up for it by tapping into our banking sector and consequently complain of expensive loans in Belarus,” Lukashenko said.