OREANDA-NEWS On 07 October was announced, that the Belarusian ruble depreciated against the basket of currencies of Belarus’ main trade partners 17.07% in real terms in January-August 2009.

In August, the real effective rate of the Belarusian ruble went up 0.1% against the basket.

The Belarusian ruble depreciated against the Russian ruble 13.22% in the period, against the Ukrainian hryvna 21.09%, against the euro 22.11%, and against the U.S. dollar 19.17%.

Against the Latvian lat the Belarusian ruble lost 23.75% of its value, against the Lithuanian litas 22.96%, against the British pound sterling 26.3%, and against the Kazakh tenge the Belarusian ruble depreciated 0.62%.

IMF experts had insisted on a depreciation of the Belarusian ruble during the talks with the Belarusian government over a stand-by facility, and on January 2, 2009 the central bank devaluated the national currency 20.5% against the U.S. dollar, 20.3% against the euro and 17.3% against the Russian ruble.

Starting May 1, 2004 all countries, whose share in Belarus’ trade turnover is above 1%, are considered Belarus’ trade partners. Earlier, only currencies of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and Poland were included in the basket of currencies.