Context: In early 2026, Belarus’s gold and foreign exchange reserves approached $16 billion, reaching an all-time high. According to BelTA, citing the Eurasian Development Bank, January saw the strongest growth since June 2017. However, the surge in gold prices was the primary factor driving the overall rise.
On 9 February 2026, economic analyst Aliaksei Audonin appeared on the Azarenok.Napryamuyu show on CTV, where he explained why the Belarusian economy is the most developed among the countries of the former USSR.
“We started earning from exports, accumulating gold and foreign exchange reserves, creating buffers, and attracting investment. <...> Show me where in the post-Soviet region the national economy has grown so much. Nowhere!” Audonin answered his own question — yet incorrectly.
The WTF team found another, correct answer. By the end of last year, Belarus’s exports had exceeded $41 billion. However, imports were even higher. As a result, the goods trade balance turned a negative $7 billion. Summarising the indicators for goods and services, the gap between exports and imports narrows but remains negative at around $1.3 billion over 11 months. This means that Belarus spends more than it earns.
Although Belarus’s gold and foreign exchange reserves have grown, they are still only a quarter of Kazakhstan’s, despite Kazakhstan’s population being only twice as large. Russia’s gold and foreign exchange reserves exceed Belarus’s by about 51 times, despite Russia’s population being only 16 times larger.
If we consider the long-term dynamics, we can see that GDP per capita in Belarus increased sixfold between 1995 and 2024. By comparison, it increased ninefold in Latvia and Estonia, nearly 12-fold in Kazakhstan, 13-fold in Lithuania, almost 16-fold in Georgia, and 19-fold in Armenia.
As of 2024, this indicator in all the countries listed was higher than in Belarus: approximately twice as high in Kazakhstan, three times as high in Latvia, and four times as high in Lithuania and Estonia.
