_5_ 13. The proportion of employee remuneration made up of fringe benefits is also shown in Table 3 to be much greater in industry than in agriculture and construction, and greater even in transport than in industry. The apparent reason for the lower spending on fringe benefits in agriculture is greater rural availability of housing and home-grown food. Table 3 shows that enterprise spending on social development, which is largely construction and maintenance of housing and infrastructure, and spending on social benefits, which is in part subsidies for food and meals, account for lower proportions of worker remuneration in agriculture than in other sectors. A possible explanation offered for the importance of fringe benefits in transport is the dominance of large enterprises in this industry as compared to, say, the more atomistic nature of much of the construction industry.

14. Differences in provision of fringe benefits in the 7 oblasts or principal regional subdivisions of Belarus shown in Table 3 may reflect underlying differences in the importance of agriculture and industry in the economies of these regions, but in any event the differences are not great. Separately, it was also found that they were not consistent between 1994 and 1995.

15. Although not reported in Tables 1-3, it was also found that expenditures by enterprises for fringe benefits in 1995 were one third or less of what they were as a proportion of employee compensation in 1994. We have noted that data were not collected for maintenance of housing and infrastructure in 1994 which made up the largest single category of enterprise social expenditures in 1995, accounting in the latter year for 26 percent of the total. Even without this component, however, enterprise "social" expenditures amounted to 35 percent of total cmployee compensation by firms in 1994. In 1995 by way of contrast, when maintenance expenditures were recorded and could be included in calculations of enterprise '"social" expenditures, the latter amounted to 12 percent of total employee compensation.

16. Enterprise spending on construction of houses and infrastructure declined precipitously between 1994 and 1995; this category of spending in 1995 being less than 8% of what it was in 1994. Enterprise construction amounted to 768 billion Belarusian rubels (henceforth BYR) in 1994 and BYR 610 billion in 1995. Taking into account the fact that the producer price index rose more than tenfold from June 1994 to June 1995.9 however, enterprise social construction in 1995 amounted to only BYR 61 billion in 1994 prices.

17. The decline in enterprise spending on fringe benefits in 1995 was also evident in our interviews: enterprises that were visited reported reductions in spending for some types of benefits such as summer camps for children, by actively promoting purchases bv non-employees and by insisting on greater costrecoverv from users. Many fringe benefits which continued to be offered by enterprises were being treated **_Table 3:_** _Cbiniion of Frp4,Iee_ **_Rewwnmemion By Ob0a1,_** _1995_ **_(%_** _of Total)_

||_Bresl_|_Vitebsk_|_Gotrel_|**_G,rxW_**|_Minsk City_|Minsk<br>_Regicn_|_Mogilov_|**_G(mndTotdl_**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Wages|78%|76%|71°|780/o|72%|**720/o**|**770/o**|74%|
|Other Mnetary Payments<br>toEmnployes|11%|11%|17%|120%|16%|13%|**120/o**|14%|
|Exrndinresfor Social|||||||||
|Dev'elopment|8°.o|100/%|10%|7°o|90%|12%|8%|9%|
|Social Benefits<br>for Emnploas|3%|3%|3/o|**3%/**|**30/o**|3%|3%|3%|
|**NrimnietaryRenumeratim**|110o|**130/o**|13%|10%|12%|15%|11%|12%/o|

**_Source:_** Special conpatiaonoytheMinistryofStatAstics RepulicofBelarus

9 Setting the producer price index for June 1994 to equal 100, the June 1995 value of the index was 1078.