Duty on foreign currency purchase to make Belarusian companies stop working

The current conditions do not allow business to make plans.

Aliaksandr Kalinin, the head of the Belarusian Union of Businessmen, told it to BelaPAN, commenting on the government's latest decisions on the currency market.

“Those involved in the real sector are perplexed. We carried out an opinion poll among enterprises of our union. We see that the easiest way out for companies today is to stop and do nothing, send employees on vacation and wait for further developments,” Kalinin said.

He noted that the 20% duty, which companies have to pay for buying foreign currency, must be paid from net incomes and cannot be included into expenses. It makes companies suffer losses, the head of the business union stresses. In particular, the companies having liabilities in foreign currency can suffer losses, he notes.

“Business now cannot plan its activities, especially import and export operations,” Kalinin says. Belarusian companies will be able to make plans only after an official devaluation is carried out and the single exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble is returned, he added.

Andrei Karpunin, the chairman of the Republican Club of Financial Directors, agrees with this opinion. “All business plans prepared by financial directors in the last months of 2014 went to a trash bin. Financial directors will make new business plans for 2015 only after the duty on the purchase of foreign currency is lifted, the situation on the currency market is put in order and the country returns to the single exchange rate,” he said.

A 30% duty on purchasing foreign currency was imposed on individuals and companies on 20 December 2014. The authorities explain the measure by a high demand for foreign currency. The National Bank later reduced the mandatory fee to 20% due to the “normalisation of the situation on the country's financial and currency markets”.

Photo: AP