BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

02/01/2008

Small Businessmen in Belarus Go on Strike Against Restrictive Decree

BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

Text of report in English by Belarusian privately-owned independent news agency Belapan

Minsk, 1 January: Small market vendors who have sole entrepreneur status went on a two-week strike on 1 January in protest against [President] Alyaksandr Lukashenka's Edict No 760, which bans business owners holding sole entrepreneur status from employing workers other than three family members.

The strike will be held in the form of "forced vacation" during which no taxes will be paid, Viktar Harbachow, a leader of small business owners' association called For the Free Development of Enterprise, told Belapan. According to him, up to 30,000 people will take part in the strike at an initial stage and then increasingly more sole entrepreneurs will join them and the total number of strikers may reach 100,000. The protest is expected to last until 15 January.

Apart from the strike, sole entrepreneurs plan to stage a rally on Minsk's Kastrychnitskaya Square on 10 January. "If nothing changes, sole entrepreneurs will suspend their operation for an indefinite period," Mr Harbachow said.

Another association of small business owners, Perspektyva, plans to stage a "March of Entrepreneurs" in Minsk in the latter half of the month.

As Mr Harbachow said, several associations of entrepreneurs may soon sign an agreement on cooperation to efficiently defend their "constitutional rights". According to him, apart from For the Free Development of Enterprise, readiness to sign such an agreement has already been expressed by the Coordinating Council of Entrepreneurs, and the founding committee for a union of small and medium-sized business owners, which is to be named Razam (Together).

"Entrepreneurs are fully determined to fight for their existence," Mr Harbachow stressed.

While talking to reporters on 30 December, Mr Lukashenka made it clear that Edict No 760 would not be recalled. The Belarusian leader explained that the business owners who have sole entrepreneur status pay much less in taxes than businesspeople registered as legal entities. Sole entrepreneurs sometimes employ up to 100 people, he noted. "If you want to operate in this way, then please register your enterprise and pay all taxes," he said. "Why? Because otherwise there is unfair competition."

"Apart from the fact that this is unfair competition, they, for instance, bring in garments and compete with out enterprises that manufacture garments," he said. "But how is it possible to compete with them if they almost don't pay taxes? They have the opportunity to lower their price and they have, by dumping, destroyed thousands of jobs."

Commenting on the employee restriction, Mr Lukashenka said, "What have we done? If you work alone, import, sell [goods] and enjoy preferences. We have even allowed them to hire close relatives. What is so bad about this? Nothing, I guess."

According to Mr Lukashenka, he made a concession to the protesters by signing an edict the previous day, which extended until 1 March 2008 the period for sole entrepreneurs to reregister their businesses into a "private unitary enterprise" on easy terms.

Source:

http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybsb&story_id=113291291&ID=blackenterprise