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Airline ticket Belarus

Foreign relations and military

Belarus has increased cooperation with China, strengthened by the visit of President Lukashenko to China in October 2005. Belarus has strong ties with Syria, which President Lukashenko considers a key partner in the Middle East. In addition to the CIS, Belarus has membership in the Eurasian Economic Community and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Belarus has been a member of the international Non-Aligned Movement since 1998 and a member of the United Nations since its founding in 1945.

The Armed Forces of Belarus has three branches: the Army, the Air Force, and the Ministry of Defense joint staff. Colonel-General Leonid Maltsev heads the Ministry of Defense, and Alexander Lukashenko (as president) serves as Commander-in-Chief. The Armed Forces was formed in 1992 using parts of the former Soviet Armed Forces on the new republic's territory. The transformation of the ex-Soviet forces into the Armed Forces of Belarus, which was completed in 1997, reduced the number of its soldiers by 30,000 and restructured its leadership and military formations. Most of Belarus's service members are conscripts, who serve for 12 months if they have higher education or 18 months if they do not. However, demographic decreases in the Belarusians of conscription age have increased the importance of contract soldiers, who numbered 12,000 as of 2001. In 2005, about 1.4% of Belarus's gross domestic product was devoted to military expenditures. Belarus has not expressed a desire to join NATO but has participated in the Individual Partnership Program since 1997.

Provinces and districts

Belarus is divided into six voblasts, or provinces, which are named after the cities that serve as their administrative centers. Each voblast has a provincial legislative authority, called an oblsovet, which is elected by the voblast's residents, and a provincial executive authority called a voblast administration, whose leader is appointed by the president. Voblasts are further subdivided into raions (commonly translated as districts or regions). As with voblasts, each raion has its own legislative authority (raisovet, or raion council) elected by its residents, and an executive authority (raion administration) appointed by higher executive powers. As of 2002, there are six voblasts, 118 raions, 102 towns and 108 urbanized settlements. Minsk is given a special status, due to the city serving as the national capital. Minsk City is run by an executive committee and granted a charter of self-rule by the national government.

Geography

Belarus is landlocked, relatively flat, and contains large tracts of marshy land. According to a 1994 estimate by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, 34% of Belarus is covered by forests. Many streams and 11,000 lakes are found in Belarus. Three major rivers run through the country: the Neman, the Pripyat, and the Dnepr. The Neman flows westward towards the Baltic sea and the Pripyat flows eastward to the Dnepr; the Dnepr flows southward towards the Black Sea. Belarus's highest point is Dzyarzhynskaya Hara (Dzyarzhynsk Hill) at 345 metres (1,130 ft), and its lowest point is on the Neman River at 90 metres (300 ft). The average elevation of Belarus is 525 feet (160 m) above sea level. The climate ranges from harsh winters, with average January temperatures at ?6 °C (21.2 °F), to cool and moist summers with the average temperature of 18 °C (64 °F). Belarus experiences an average rainfall of 550 to 700 millimeters (21.7 to 27.5 inches). The country experiences a yearly transition from a continental climate to a maritime climate.

Belarus's natural resources include peat deposits, small quantities of oil and natural gas, granite, dolomite (limestone), marl, chalk, sand, gravel, and clay. About 70% of the radiation from neighboring Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster entered Belarusian territory, and as of 2005 about a fifth of Belarusian land (principally farmland and forests in the southeastern provinces) continues to be affected by radiation fallout. The United Nations and other agencies have aimed to reduce the level of radiation in affected areas, especially through the use of caesium binders and rapeseed cultivation, which are meant to decrease soil levels of caesium-137.

Belarus is bordered by Latvia on the north, Lithuania on the northwest, Poland on the west, Russia on the north and east and Ukraine on the south. Treaties in 1995 and 1996 demarcated Belarus's borders with Latvia and Lithuania, but Belarus failed to ratify a 1997 treaty establishing the Belarus-Ukraine border. Belarus and Lithuania ratified final border demarcation documents in February 2007.

Economy

Most of the Belarusian economy remains state-controlled, as in Soviet times. Thus, 51.2% of Belarusians are employed by state-controlled companies, 47.4% are employed by private Belarusian companies (of which 5.7% are partially foreign-owned), and 1.4% are employed by foreign companies. The country relies on imports such as oil from Russia Important agricultural products include potatoes and cattle byproducts, such as meat. As of 1994, the biggest exports of Belarus were heavy machinery, agricultural products, and energy products.

Historically important branches of industry include textiles and wood processing. As of the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus was one of the world's most industrially developed states by percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) as well as the richest CIS state. Economically, Belarus involved itself in the CIS, Eurasian Economic Community, and Union with Russia. During the 1990s, however, industrial production plunged because of decreases in imported inputs, in investment, and in demand for exports from traditional trading partners. It took until 1996 for the gross domestic product to rise; this coincided with the government putting more emphasis on using the GDP for social welfare and state subsidies. The GDP for 2006 was US$83.1 billion in purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars (estimate), or about $8,100 per capita. In 2005, the gross domestic product increased by about 9.9%, with the inflation rate averaging about 9.5%.

Belarus's largest trading partner is Russia, accounting for nearly half of total trade in 2006. As of 2006, the European Union was Belarus's next largest trading partner, with which nearly a third of trade was conducted. Because of its failure to protect labor rights, however, Belarus lost its E.U. Generalized System of Preferences status on June 21, 2007, which raised tariff rates to their prior most-favored nation levels. Belarus has applied to become a member of the World Trade Organization since 1993.

The labor force consists of more than four million people, among whom women hold slightly more jobs than men. In 2005, nearly a quarter of the population was employed in industrial factories. Employment is also high in agriculture, manufacturing sales, trading goods, and education. The unemployment rate, according to Belarusian government statistics, was about 1.5% in 2005. The number of unemployed persons totaled 679,000 of whom about two-thirds are women. The rate of unemployment has been decreasing since 2003, and the overall rate has been lower since statistics were first compiled in 1995.