17:59 Are Belarusians going to smell bad?

The price of elite perfumes is going to double soon. The reason for it is decree #20, according to which entrepreneurs will be allowed to sell foreign perfumes only if they have a license for foreign-trade operations starting from April 1. The price of elite perfumes is going to double soon. The reason for it is decree #20, according to which entrepreneurs will be allowed to sell foreign perfumes only if they have a license for foreign-trade operations starting from April 1.


There are only two companies having such licenses in Belarus, but their elite perfumes choice is not diverse and the prices are very high.

We asked an entrepreneur Martha how Belarusians were going to smell:

“We can’t go to Moscow and it means that perfumes trade is going to come to naught. I mean elite perfumes. We have been allowed to sell them only till they expire. We will not be able to import them starting from April 1.

Well, we have a way out – we can buy them in Minsk. The problem is that the choice is very poor. I have 200 kinds of goods while they have only 20. Our retail prices are the same as their wholesale prices. It’s not at all advantageous for us. An of course it won’t pay for consumers if the prices double.

The deputy Minister of Economics Andrey Tur did not attend the last meeting of private entrepreneurs. And they were waiting for explanations. What kind of explanations? The authorities claimed that entrepreneurs were selling “imitation” perfumes. The head of the union of entrepreneurs Aliaksandar Patupa would like to see the results of the analysis on the basis of which such conclusions were made:

“We haven’t been shown anything. And they cannot say anything for sure. Maybe it’s because there are no such results. I mean documents proving the necessity of such limitations”.

Entrepreneurs will have to be satisfied with the goods left in Belarus until they are able to change the situation.

But there is a hope for consumers and for entrepreneurs. If entrepreneurs are forbidden to import perfumes then consumers will start buying them abroad:

- We usually buy “Nina Ricсi”.
- Do you know that import of elite perfumes is forbidden starting from April 1?
- Yes.
- So what are you going to do?
- We’ll start buying them abroad.


- What am I going to buy? “Lancôme” and “Kelvin Klein” of course. I think we don’t have any analogical perfumes here. It’s incomparable to buy any domestic perfumes.

Entrepreneurs still rely on the government:

Martha: “Of course we want to stay in this business and we are hoping the government changes something. If they see that perfumes have disappeared they might think that some mistake has been made”.

Maybe the situation will change for the better. It is unlikely that someone could be interested in Belarusians smelling bad.


Photo by www.istockphoto.com