The National Bank of the Republic of Belarus plans reduce the refinancing rate.
This means that the National Bank wants to further stimulate consumer demand through additional cheap loans and improve the economic viability of its real sector.
The whole story raises questions about the fact that the same National Bank operates, to put it mildly, with controversial statistics about the "oversupply of goods over money." One gets the feeling that a fairly formal conclusion is being made: since there are a lot of goods, it means that you just need to add money.
P.S. There may be an overabundance of goods. Yes, the warehouses are full. But how much this concerns really necessary and liquid goods is a big question.
Inflation is contained, rather, due to the fact that everyone goes into savings, rather than into current consumption, which usually accelerates it. But if it "explodes", then, as they say, it will not seem enough.
Hence the key assumption: that the new money will go to the real sector. But this is just not obvious.
The problem, in my opinion, is deeper. People are mostly not spending now, not because they don't have money (many people have savings, even excess ones, I think), but because there is nowhere to invest, especially in the domestic product line.
There is enough for basic things - for bread and butter, thank God, there is. And everything else is simply not a priority for many, especially in conditions of pressure on all fronts: falling investment activity, high taxes and administrative restrictions in all areas.
Normally thinking people in such conditions will simply take advantage of the situation: at the expense of "cheap money" it is possible today to select really liquid assets that are now at the bottom. But these are assets, well, they certainly have nothing to do with the domestic real sector, and clearly not the effect that is usually expected when pouring money into the economy.
It's time to take off the rose-colored glasses.
