OREANDA-NEWS. May 24, 2011. OJSC ASB Belarusbank has inked a loan agreement with a consortium of German banks to finance the acquisition of a medium density fiberboard production line worth over 40 million euros to OJSC Gomeldrev under its contract with Siempelkamp Maschinen – und Anlagenbau GmbH, the Belarusian bank said in a statement.

The loan agreement was signed during a meeting of Belarusbank representatives and counterparts from German AKA Ausfuhrkreditgesellschaft mbH, Commerzbank AG and Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Euler Hermes export risk insurance agency.

Belarusbank was established in 1991 and merged with Belarus’ Sberbank in 1995. The state controls 99.7% in the bank.

In April 2011, Moody's rating service lowered Belarusbank’s long-term global local currency (GLC) deposit rating to B2 from B1. The bank’s long-term global foreign-currency deposit rating was downgraded to B3 from B2. All of the bank’s international credit ratings carry a Negative outlook.

Fitch Ratings in March, 2011 revised some of the bank’s ratings: Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) was affirmed at 'B-'; Outlook was revised to Negative from Stable; Short-term IDR was affirmed at 'B'; Support Rating was affirmed at '4'; Individual Rating was affirmed at 'D/E'.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services in April 2011 assigned its 'B' long-term and 'B' short-term counterparty credit ratings to Belarusbank. The outlook is negative.