Minsk exchange offices don't have foreign cash again

Journalists of Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi visited several currency exchange offices on Monday morning to see the situation with foreign cash.

“We don't receive foreign currency from the bank. We sell only what we buy from people. We have 100 dollars and 100 euros right now,” says a bank teller at a currency exchange office in the Minsk centre.

The same could be seen at other exchange offices. Only one of them had enough foreign cash, while the rest had only the foreign currency that people sold to the bank.

“We have 100 dollars and no euros,” a girl at a Belarusbank office says. There's a queue, but people don't ask about foreign currency. They came to open or top up their deposit accounts and pay loans. This is the only exchange office that organsed exchange rates in four columns to make it more convenient for customers. The first column represents the purchasing rate (13,800 and 16.750 rubles a dollar and a euro respectively), the second one describes the selling rate (12.125 and 14.742), the third one is for the 20% duty (additional 2.425 and 2.928 rubles a dollar and a euro respectively). The fourth column depicts the total actual exchange rate including the duty (14.550 and 17.690 rubles). The rest exchange offices point only official exchange rates without the duty.

“Do you have 80 dollars?” a girl asks at an exchange office on Victory Square.

A bank teller spends much time on a check but finally finds the required sum.

“One million and 165 thousand,” she said to the customer.

“Of course, the number of people decreased. We don't have such long queues we saw in December,” a teller at another bank office says. “But foreign currency remains in demand. People ask if we have foreign currency. If we buy foreign cash from customers, we sell it rather quickly.”