Bahdankevich: Devaluation to speed up at least twofold

It seems impossible to keep the devaluation rate under 15% without external loans.

The National Bank of Belarus would like to keep the Belarusian ruble devaluation rate in 2015 at the level of 2014. Taras Nadolny, first deputy chairman of the board of the National Bank, said it to journalists on October 2 on the sidelines of a parliamentary sitting.

Taras Nadolny said the discussion of the main monetary policy directions for 2015 was at the final stage. They will be based on the assumption that the “tendencies of Belarusian ruble’s weakening will be the same as in 2014”.

“The inflation rate will be around 20% at the end of 2014, so the devaluation is supposed to be higher. Regrettably, the National Bank turns attention only to the foreign trade balance, though the entire balance of payments, which is negative, should be taken into account,” Stanislau Bahdankevich, a former chief of the National Bank, told BelaPAN.

“The tendencies in the foreign currency market are negative,” the National Bank's former head notes. “The situation in the Russian economy will worsen. The Belarusian ruble should be devalued faster than our government plans at least to have our foreign trade profitable.

The devaluation speed should be at least slightly higher than the speed of the Russian ruble depreciation. We can restrain it, but it will harm economic growth. In general, it is impossible to keep the devaluation at the level of 15% without external loans. It will rise at least twofold up to 30%.

In 2014, the Belarusian ruble has been devaluing by an average of 1.25% a month under strict control of financial authorities: the official ruble/dollar exchange rate rose 11.25% (from 9.510 to 10,580 Belarusian rubles per dollar) from January 1 to September 30.