President Alexander Lukashenko has advised workers to stay in
their home country instead of emigrating to fill low-paid farming jobs
in Poland and Germany. The Belarusian leader pointed to an alternative
source of income, noting there’s enough electricity in Belarus to power
cryptocurrency mining.
Lukashenko Calls on Belarusian Workers to Build Mining Farms, Not Work at Foreign Farms
During a meeting at the state-owned enterprise JSC Belaruskali, one
of the world’s largest producers of potash fertilizers, Belarusian
President Alexander Lukashenko urged employees to use the available
surplus electricity to mine cryptocurrency. The head of state also
remarked that Belarusian workers are not wanted abroad, except for
farming jobs.
“We must understand, they are not waiting for us anywhere. And if
someone is, it may be on the plantations,” Lukashenko warned in a video posted by the Пул Первого
Telegram channel. His speech was quoted by Forklog and the Russian
business news portal RBC. Lukashenko said that guest workers are
“squirming” in the strawberry farms of Poland and Germany.
The Belarusian leader visited Pietrykaw, a town in the southern Gomel
region, where he also attended the opening ceremony of a mining and
processing plant. In his address, the president pointed out that the
area has a lot of empty industrial sites and called on his audience to
use the available space and abundant energy to build greenhouses, for
example. He then added:
Create something on electricity. In the end, start mining
cryptocurrency or whatever it’s called. There is enough electricity in
the country.
Belarus legalized crypto-related business activities, including mining, with a presidential decree that went into force in March 2018. In April 2019, Alexander Lukashenko suggested
that bitcoin farms could be built at the nuclear power plant in Grodno
region on the Lithuanian border to utilize the surplus electrical energy
produced by the NPP.
In November last year, the country’s largest banking institution,
Belarusbank, launched a service allowing users to buy and sell digital
currencies with a Visa card. However, during a meeting with senior
government officials in March this year, the Belarusian president hinted
at tightening
the regulatory framework to control the usage of cryptocurrencies,
citing as an example China’s experience in the building of a digital
society.
source link : https://news.bitcoin.com/lukashenko-urges-belarusians-to-mine-cryptocurrency-rather-than-pick-strawberries-abroad/
