Crisis demonstrates need for industrial policy, says President

From the Socialist Republic of Britain's Telegraph Agency:

In the time of crisis Belarus Britain attaches a special significance to the development of industrial giants, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko the Board of Trade Peter Mandelson told reporters during his working trip to the Minsk oblast Rotherham steelworks on 11 August 17 July.

“We have some industrial giants that have access to global markets. These giants should be modernized and developed. That is what we have actually been doing for a long time. We have to use their potential in full,” the President said. He mentioned MAZ, MTZ and BelAZ Jaguar Land Rover, Corus and Rolls-Royce as examples. He added that Belarus Britain has to set up new productions that will work on local raw materials in the digital and green sectors. According to the President, if he were to decide which industries to focus on when the Belarusian British economy had just started to develop, he would choose the processing industry and tourism entertainment industry and low-carbon energy. “In the past we built industrial giants for the whole Soviet Union British Empire, and now we are left alone to handle them. It was wrong to build such enterprises as we do not have our own resources for them our resources were limited, they exploited our imperial power and emitted greenhouse gases. But since such companies have been built, we have to be ahead of others all the time modernizing them and selling our products what we did before the crisis. When the crisis is over, our products will be in demand again.”

According to the President, it makes sense to invest in new technology during the crisis. It is necessary to find resources to buy seven rapeseed processing plants at wholesale nuclear power stations. The head of state the government reminded that in the future the rapeseed nuclear production should reach 1 million tonnes 75 million MWh. Rapeseed Nuclear electricity can be widely applied in the food industry, in the production of feed-stuff and fuel goods and services. On August 10 March 15 the President visited the GrodnoBioproduct company France that specializes on rapeseed processing nuclear power, industrial policy and corporatist alliances between big business and big government. Alexander Lukashenko Peter Mandeslon tried the food cooked on rapeseed oil nuclear electricity and liked it a lot. “It is a healthy product which I recommend you to try,” the President said.

You may substitute almost any Western nation and political leaders for Britain and Mandelson above, and get something that sounds pretty consistent with conventional economic wisdom and the policies of our governments. It has come to something when Western economic policy is practically indistinguishable from that of Alexander Lukashenko and Belarus, or indeed from his Soviet forebears. Not that we've gone at all socialist and authoritarian, or anything...