OREANDA-NEWS. November 02, 2009. President Alexander Lukashenko has met with Pyotr Prokopovich, Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Belarus, to receive his report, reported the Official website president.gov.by.

Pyotr Prokopovich has briefed the President on the results of implementation of the Basic Guidelines of the Monetary and Credit Policy in January-September and on the plans to ensure the 2009 policy targets are met.

The monetary and credit policy targets in January-September have been fulfilled; there has been ensured the stability of the banking system and the exchange rate policy. In the past four months the trading band for the Belarusian rouble against the currency basket remained virtually unchanged within ±5 per cent as against the beginning of the year, which is much lower than the acceptable band of ±10 per cent. At the same time, there were some fluctuations in the cost of certain currencies within the basket.

The National Bank was paying special attention to crediting in the real production sector of the economy. As of 1 October 2009, the issuance of bank loans increased 1.42 times from 1 October 2008, which roughly corresponds to the pre-crisis level.

In January-September 2009, 1.72 times more payments were made within the payment system than in January-September 2008, which shows that the Belarusian payment system and the banking system are stable.

The President ordered the National Bank to ensure that the monetary and credit targets of the year are met. The President paid special attention to the need for addressing the issues related to the indicators of social and economic development of Belarus for the year 2010 which should become the year of re-achieving the high economic growth rate. And the Belarusian monetary and credit policy should be based on this goal, said the Head of State.