National Bank of Belarus started ruble weakening?

The exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble fell last week against all main foreign currencies on the Belarusian Currency and Stock Exchange.

The euro exchange rate demonstrated the biggest growth, 2.9%, and reached its record high, 4,291 BYR/EUR. The dollar and ruble rates grew by 0.3% each. This has led to the increase in the cost of the currency basket against the Belarusian ruble by 1.15%, which exceeds the level of December 31, 2009, by 4.56%. The tolerable deviation for the current year is 10%, but the National Bank was long trying to restrain the fluctuation of the ruble exchange rate against the basket within a range of 2% of the level of the beginning of the year.

So, the National Bank has started stepping up the weakening of the Belarusian ruble rate against the currency basket. A possible reason for that may be an example of other countries trying to outdo one another in weakening the exchange rates of their national currencies, “Belorusy i Rynok” newspaper concludes.