In conditions of a sharp drop in oil prices, the weakening of the ruble and the national currencies of the Eurasian Union, the question arises of the possibility of a further deepening of integration within the EAEC.
Analyzing how the countries react to the deteriorating economic situation, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Shirov said: ‘’For Kazakhstan the crisis of 2008-2009 was relatively painless. Why? Because they pursued a policy of incentives, primarily to stimulate investment activity to support consumer credit. But if we really look at what is happening in the economy of Kazakhstan, the policy support and incentives have reached a certain limit. That is, the numbers of the market turnover have declined, which is comparable to what we see in Russia, the numbers in industrial production have declined as well, again comparable to what we see in Russia, indicating that the situation risks are limiting the development of the economy of Kazakhstan almost as much as ours. "
However, the expert acknowledged that the GDP of Kazakhstan is pulled by investment. "In this direction there is still some active support and encouragement, but it is clear that in such circumstances, when incomes are falling, first of all export revenues are very limited."
According to Shirov, that this model of incentives, the easing of monetary policy does have risks. ‘’Therefore, before changing the monetary policy, the economic policy, it is necessary to think well where there is that limit of the development in the model that we have created. And the main problem is whether a soft or a rigid monetary policy is necessary. Perhaps the main problem is that we do not understand where we need to direct those resources, in which directions, to which activities"
With regard to Belarus, the expert said that the country has been trapped: "Belarus has just been trapped in what is virtually an ideal use of the potential of the Soviet legacy, manufacturing, industrial, and so on, but to take advantage of the EAEC they have little investment. They have created very few enterprises over the last 20 years. As a result, this limits their production capacity. That is, in each country of the EAEC there are problems. And it is not so easy to solve them, in fact. We have gone too far. "
