On 3 June 2016 President Alexander Lukashenka decided to strengthen the country's antimonopoly regulation by reforming the Ministry of Trade of Belarus.

The trade wars following the 2014 events in Ukraine affected not only the directly involved participants, but also countries like Belarus that were affected through international trade linkages. According to my estimations based on a model outlined in Ossa (2014), these trade wars led to an increase in the trade flow through Belarus and thereby an increase of its tariff revenue. At the same time, because of a ban on imports in the sectors of meat and dairy products, the tariff revenue of Russia declined. As a member of the Eurasian Customs Union (EACU), Belarus can only claim a fixed portion of its total tariff revenue. Since the decline in the tariff revenue of Russia led to a decline in the total tariff revenue of the EACU, there was a decrease in the after-redistribution tariff revenue of Belarus. As a result, Belarusian welfare decreased. To avoid further welfare declines, Belarus should argue for a modification of the redistribution schedule. Alternatively, Belarus could increase its welfare during trade wars by shifting from being a part of the EACU to only being a part of the CIS Free Trade Area (FTA). If Belarus was only part of the CIS FTA, the optimal tariffs during trade wars should be higher than the optimal tariffs without trade wars. The optimal response to the increased trade flow through Belarus is higher tariffs.

On 6 May 2016 the Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Belarus (NBB) Pavel Kallaur disclosed the long-suspected information about problems in the banking system. Two weeks later, the Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov has called for market-based instruments in order to cure sinking state-owned enterprises (SOEs). And оn 22 May 2016 the Minister of Finance Vladimir Amarin has announced budget cuts appealing Belarusians to live within one's means. The Belarusian population is paying for mistakes made by the government focused on preserving inefficient state enterprises.

On 28 March 2016 the Council of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilisation and Development (EFSD) approved the provision of a new loan to Belarus. In the meantime, the export and real estate market established new numbers of their record fall, questioning the limits of slowdown in Belarus. In such a situation the government tries to secure state financial support – President Alexander Lukashenka has signed a new decree that grants funding only for profitable strategic investment projects.

FREE Policy Brief: The Economic Complexity of Transition Economies written by Arevik Gnutzmann-Mkrtchyan was published in FREE Policy Brief Series.