In countries from Poland to Ukraine and Russia, the signal that a country was shifting from communism to capitalism came when the government began to privatise state assets – and because Belarus never really switched systems, it never sold off its state companies.

But now the government, which controls about 75 per cent of the economy, is thinking about selling some of its largest companies and the reason has little to do with any kind of systemic transformation. The official rationale is that Belarus needs to maintain its growth.