Rumas, Sergey Nikolaevich

Born in Gomel. His father was a well-known economist, in the first half of the 1990s he was Deputy Minister of Finance ^[2] . In the 1970s, the family moved to Minsk , where Sergei attended school number 44. He passed military service in the Far East ^[3] . In 1990, he graduated from the Yaroslavl Higher Military Financial School named after A. V. Khrulev with a degree in financial support for the troops, and in 1995 he graduated from the Academy of Management under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus with a degree in organization and management of foreign economic activity. In 2001, he successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences, the thesis topic was “Ways to optimize the structure of the resources of a commercial bank” ^[4] .

From 1992 to 1994, he headed various departments of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus - accounting, operational, credit, and economic ^[5] . For some time he worked in commercial banks, in 1995 he headed branch No. 7 (514) of JSSB Belarusbank , soon became the first deputy chairman of the bank's board ^[5] . In 2005 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Belagroprombank .

On December 28, 2010, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus (Deputy Prime Minister) ^[6] , oversaw economic policy. Before, during and after the financial crisis of 2011, he repeatedly came up with proposals aimed at developing market relations, but they were not always implemented in practice. He actively argued with Sergey Tkachev, Alexander Lukashenko's assistant on economic issues ^[7] . During this period, criticized the activities of the National Bank ^[3] . In the autumn of 2011, under the leadership of Rumas, a draft of structural economic reforms was drafted, which Alexander Lukashenko criticized ^[8] . According to him, “ Soon we will really go to the shops, like in museums. We will not do that, but most of the population will come there to look at the market economy of Myasnikovich- Rumas ” ^[9] .

July 31, 2012: appointed Chairman of the Board of the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus . Commenting on this appointment, Alexander Lukashenko called Rumas' transition a “colossal loss for the government” ^[10] . On April 25, 2013, Rumas as the Chairman of the Board of the Development Bank became the representative of the Republic of Belarus on the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission and was given the authority of the Deputy Prime Minister on the issues of the Republic of Belarus within the main integration associations ^[11] . Under his leadership, the Development Bank has been investing in domestic industry and infrastructure ^[12] , attracting foreign loans ^{[13] [14]} , supporting exports ^[15] and entrepreneurship ^[16] . In 2013, he participated in resolving the conflict between Belaruskali and Uralkali ^[17] . He is a member of advisory councils: in 2012, Alexander Lukashenko introduced Rumas into the council for the development of exports ^[18] , in 2017 - into the council for the development of entrepreneurship ^[19] .

In 2011, he became chairman of the Belarusian Football Federation . During his work, he appeared in financial and economic journals with a number of articles; in 2016 he published a monograph “Development banks: a new role in the 21st century” together with M. M. Kovalev .

In 2014, the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus awarded Rumas with the badge “Honorary Worker of the Banking System of Belarus” ^[20] . In 2015, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Surikov, awarded Rumas the Order of Friendship for his active participation in the preparation of the EurAsEC Treaty ^[21] .

On August 18, 2018, he was appointed new prime minister of the Republic of Belarus, replacing Andrei Kobyakov ^[22] . At the same time, the presidential decree contains a clause on the need for the subsequent approval of Rumas in the House of Representatives , although the Constitution , on the contrary, requires first to approve a candidate in parliament, after which the president can appoint the prime minister ^{[23] [24] [25]} . October 5, 2018 approved by the House of Representatives in office ^[26] .

Views

He advocated a more active privatization of state enterprises and for attracting foreign investment in larger volumes ^[8] . He spoke out against concessional lending to unprofitable sectors of the economy ^[2] . He called officials the most important obstacle to attracting foreign investment ^[3] . In 2016, he supported the increase in the retirement age ^[27] . In 2017, commenting on the spread of cryptocurrency , agreed with the convenience of payments by them, but compared their investment potential with financial pyramids ^[28] . In 2019, one of the first officials announced the problem of the inefficient public sector as a key issue in the country's economy ^[29] and stated the need to end the systemic state support for problem state-owned enterprises.

Married, four sons. I am acquainted with my wife since childhood (we studied at the same school, lived next door) ^[30] .

He is fond of hunting ^[31] , fishing, and football ^[2] .

• Order of Friendship ( December 19, 2014 , Russia ) - for active participation in the preparation of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union ^[32] .

• Development banks: a new role in the XXI century: a monograph / M.M. Kovalev, S.N. Rumas. - Minsk: BSU Publishing Center, 2016. - 151 p.