Official Name
Republic of Belarus

President of Belarus
Aleksandr Lukashenko (1994 - present )

Prime Minister of Belarus
Sergei Rumas (2018 - present)

Total land area of Belarus
207,600 km²

Population – 9.491,8 million (on 1 January 2018)

• a) Life expectancy at birth – 74.4 years

• b) Population living in cities – 78%

• c) The capital is Minsk – 1.982,4 million inhabitants

Regional centres of Belarus (on 1 January 2018):

• 1) Brest Oblast – 1.384,5 million inhabitants          (Brest – 348 thousand) 

• 2) Vitebsk Oblast  – 1.180,2 million inhabitants          (Vitebsk – 378 thousand)  

• 3) Gomel Oblast  – 1.415,8 million inhabitants          (Gomel – 536 thousand) 

• 4) Grodno Oblast – 1.043,7 million inhabitants          (Grodno – 371 thousand)

• 5) Mogilev Oblast – 1.058,7 million inhabitants          (Mogilev – 381 thousand)

• 6) Minsk Oblast – 1.426,5 million inhabitants

Ethnicity

Belarusian  Russian  Polish  Ukrainian  Jewish	83.7% 8.3% 3.1% 1.7% 0.1%
(Source : 2009 census)

Languages spoken in Belarus
Belarusian and Russian

Independence Day of Belarus
July 3

Currency of Belarus
Belarusian rouble (Br) [USD 1.00=Br 2.14]

Economic indicators
GDP (2017) Br105.2 billion; per capita : Br11.1 thousand
Commodity structure of export (2017):

• a) mineral products – 24.6%

• b) chemical industry production, rubber – 18.4%

• c) cars, equipment and vehicles – 18.1%

• d) black, nonferrous metals and products from them – 7.0%

• e) articles of food and agricultural raw materials – 16.6%

• f) others – 15.3%

Commodity structure of import (2017):

• 1) mineral products – 29.0%

• 2) cars, equipment and vehicles – 23.1%

• 3) black, nonferrous metals and products from them – 10.0%

• 4) chemical industry production, rubber – 14.6%

• 5) articles of food and agricultural raw materials – 13.2%

• 6) others – 10.1%

Main Business Partners of Belarus (2017)

• Russia

• Ukraine 

• China

• United Kingdom 

• Germany 

• Poland

• Netherlands 

• Lithuania

• Turkey

• Italy

Main Industries of Belarus

• metallurgical

• mechanical engineering, including tractors and agricultural, cars, machine-tool constructing and tool industry, instrument making, radio engineering, electro technical, electronic, optics-mechanical industry; and metal working

• chemical and petrochemical

• light industry

• food industry

Area of farmland in Belarus
8582 thousands hectares (on 1 January 2016)

Agriculture
Areas of specialty in agriculture: grain, potatoes, vegetables, sugar beet, flax, meat and dairy industry

Natural resources

• wood

• peat

• potash and rock salts

• small oil and natural gas fields

• granite

• dolomite

• limestone

• clay

• sand

Number of people in employment
4.35 million (2017)

Breakdown of employed population by type of economic activity (2016):

• a) production sector – 23.4%

• b) agriculture, hunting, forestry industry – 9.6%

• c) civil engineering – 6.7%

• d) transportation and communication – 6.7%

• e) retail; repairs of automobiles, household goods, and personal-use items – 14.5%

• f) education – 10.3%

• g) others – 28.8%

Unemployment in Belarus
33.7 thousand unemployed (2017)

Communications
Number of mobile communication subscribers – 11.4 million.
Penetration of LTE-powered mobile communication services – 60%. At present the services are available in Minsk and all the oblast capitals as well as major district capitals across the country.
Number of fixed telephony subscribers – 47.5 phones per 100 residents.
Number of Internet service subscribers and users  – over 11 million, including over 3 million of fixed broadband Internet access subscribers. According to the International Telecommunication Union, in 2016 Belarus was ranked 23rd by the number of broadband subscribers.
International bandwidth – 1,110Gbps.
According to a research by the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union, the Republic of Belarus is ranked 3rd among 87 countries in the development of digital postal services.

Transportation
Railways – 5480 km, including 1215 km of electric track
Highways – 102,000 km, including paved roads 88,200 km
Oil pipelines – 2,983 km
Gas pipelines – 7,837 km