OREANDA-NEWS. May 23, 2011. Belarus and Russia have essentially completed negotiations on providing loans, the press service of the Belarusian Head of state quoted Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich as informing President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.

“I’ve just talked to President of Russia Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev. He phoned me. We are in negotiations with the Russian Federation on getting a stabilization loan to support the exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble. In all negotiations they are ready to respond promptly if we want it and not promptly if we don’t. It will be about \\$3.1 billion if we, of course, sign a relevant agreement with them,” said Alexander Lukashenko.

In his words, virtually everything has been done and Belarus can get the loan.

Alexander Lukashenko added: “Future sales of our products will be about USD3 billion. They are ready credit us. The total will be over \\$6 billion. It will be sufficient for stabilization and for having solid gold and foreign exchange reserves”.

“It should be taken into account that our economy is still expanding. A GDP as high as 112.3% as against the same period of last year is a lot. Certainly, we could use a bit more money because prices for oil, raw materials, components and so on are still high. These are objective things. But these are temporary difficulties and I would like the government and the National Bank to keep down borrowing because borrowed money will have to be returned. We should live within our means,” stressed Alexander Lukashenko.

“I’ve spent a week examining agricultural companies for a purpose. I watched what was going on there. There was no catastrophe, agricultural companies are operating steadily, as usual, but I would like you to tell me what is going on now on the foreign currency market and the consumer market. Only objective facts. Everything what’s going on. If you need me to drop everything else and get down to working on this matter, I’ll do it. If the situation is manageable and you see prospects, we will not act hastily and will act calmly”.

“As you know, a team charged with monitoring the currency market and the consumer market reports to me. I would like you to tell me everything what is going on in the currency market and the consumer market. I know you gathered together yesterday and allegedly put together another resolution. But I would like to warn you once again I want an objective evaluation so that I could finally make definite conclusions. There are many information sources but there should be one conclusion,” Alexander Lukashenko told the Prime Minister.

Mikhail Myasnikovich remarked: “We have essentially completed the negotiations with the Russian Federation. As a matter of principle, all things have been addressed. Now Belarusian Finance Minister Andrei Kharkovets and Russian Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin are discussing the final matrixes”. Approaches to crediting were discussed during talks in Minsk last Sunday. The talks involved representatives of the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank of Russia. “Today Aleksei Kudrin informed his superiors, I informed the President of Belarus.

Thus, we have reached an agreement on virtually USD3-3.5 billion in credit support from Russia on favorable terms. Besides, there are other proposals to get relevant foreign currency loans for future merchandise deliveries, and the proposals have been approved by the President. The result is USD 6-6.5 billion. We believe the money will help truly stabilize the situation on the currency market,” stressed the Prime Minister. In his words, it is feasible to deal with these issues within the next few months.

Mikhail Myasnikovich also said that Belarus might seek credit support from the International Monetary Fund. “But this process is quite lengthy,” said Mikhail Myasnikovich. “An IMF regular planned mission will arrive in Belarus in June. We will not discuss these matters but depending on the report the IMF mission will compile, we will be able to forecast future development of relations with this respected international organization”.

Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich informed the President that the national economy was developing steadily. Employment increased by 15,600 people in comparison with January-April 2010. “People are working, all enterprises are working. Certainly there are things we have to handle manually but the situation is manageable, coordination is complete and the government makes the necessary management decisions,” said Mikhail Myasnikovich.

Speaking about inflation processes in the country, Mikhail Myasnikovich remarked that the President had drawn attention of the government to the need to compensate for objective inflation processes with increased earnings of the population. Alexander Lukashenko gave an instruction to primarily secure support for low-income citizens and pensioners.

Apart from that, the Belarusian head of state was informed about matters that are supposed to be discussed at forthcoming sessions of the CIS Heads of State Council, the EurAsEC Interstate Council at the level of heads of government, and the EurAsEC Interstate Council (the Supreme Body of the Customs Union) at the level of heads of government.