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‘We’re not going to satisfy swindlers from abroad’: Lukashenko nixes privatization notions

Not in any single country has a fair or unbiased privatization ever taken place before, Lukashenko said

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko BELTA/TASS

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko

MINSK, September 21. /TASS/. Belarus will not carry out any across-the-board privatization campaigns just to please ‘swindlers’ from overseas, said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday, as quoted by the BelTA news agency.

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According to the report, the president "claimed that Belarus will not privatize anything and everything just to ‘satisfy swindlers from abroad’."

"Why do I take these enterprises so seriously? It’s not because I don’t understand that private property can and must exist. Nowhere, not in any single country has a fair or unbiased privatization ever taken place before. If we want to plunge our country and 10 million people into the deep end, and then keep moaning and groaning about how we’ve ended up in the wrong place, then count me out, that won’t be with me, and I’m certain, nor with you all, as well," BelTA quoted Lukashenko as saying.

The Belarusian president added that "you can’t just take what had been built by millions of people from society and give it away to a single investor."

"Thus, I would very much like for Belaz to operate reliably. Our vehicles outshine foreign competition as far as quality and price go. This is our advantage, and we must maintain it on international markets," Lukashenko emphasized, as he appointed Sergey Nikoforovich to the post of CEO of Belaz JSC - the managing company of Belaz-Holding.

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