Belarus president in favor of rational retirement age increase

Life should provide the guidelines for raising the retirement age. Real processes in the demographic situation should be taken into account without worsening the financial standing. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the relevant statement during the government conference held on 10 March to discuss the development of the pension system, BelTA has learned.

In his words, two factors speak in favor of raising the retirement age. Considerable changes in the structure of the society with the number of working Belarusians decreasing and the number of pensioners constantly rising is the first factor. There are over 60 pensioners per 100 working Belarusians. According to the head of state, the trends will get only worse.

"Second, thanks to our social and economic policy people now live longer. The average life expectancy has increased by five years in comparison with the 1990s. This is why 55-60 years is a normal age," believes the President.

Alexander Lukashenko noted that as far as public opinion polls are concerned, he is surprised by the fact that working Belarusians are okay with raising the retirement age while pensioners are against the measure. "As far as I can understand our ideologists and the government fail to explain things properly. Pensioners need to be told that we don't want to let things slide to a point when we have to cut pensions!" noted the President. "We cannot allow it. Because the pensions are small as it is. We cannot reduce them even more." Alexander Lukashenko went on saying that the matter had been discussed with President of Russia Vladimir Putin. The Russian president noted that even in Russia if the retirement age is left unchanged, they will have to reduce pensions because the current revenues of the pension fund are barely sufficient.

Alexander Lukashenko mentioned another aspect of the problem. If the retirement age is raised, it will be necessary to create even more jobs to keep people employed. In his opinion, it would be a good incentive for creating more jobs. The President underlined that this aspect of the problem needs thorough calculations.

The head of state went on saying that if the retirement age has to be raised, it will be done step by step in order to let the nation adapt to the changes.

"I've instructed the relevant agencies to poll the public opinion. The results are inconclusive for now. For now all I get is reports two or three pages long about some stages that we need to pass by April, by June, and by August in our campaign to convince the nation. People don't need any stages. People need to be clearly told about pros and cons," said the head of state.

"I am not inclined to exaggerate that the entire country will flip over if we raise the retirement age. It will not. I just don't want to make the decision in a haphazard way and get reproached by the nation," noted Alexander Lukashenko. "Everything should be done carefully. If we say that the person occupies the central place in our policy, we need to listen to the person or convince the person just the way we are doing it."

BELARUSIAN NEWS