Consultations on receiving Russian loan started

Belarus and Russia are starting consultations on the issues of credit and financial cooperation.

They are to be held with participation of representatives of Finance Ministries and the National banks of the two countries, BelaPAN informs.

The agreement to hold such consultations was reached on April 11 during Belarusian-Russian talks in Moscow. Then the sides outlined the plan of action which could be implemented in the framework of the economic policy of Belarus in the midterm.

We remind that in the end of March the authorities of Belarus sent the Finance Ministry of Russia a draft programme of measures for macroeconomic situation stabilization. Presence of a programme was a mandatory condition for Russia’s giving $1 billion loan, and $2 billion loan from the Anticrisis Fund of the EurAsEC.

On April 11 Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Strochak said in an interview to Reuters that the Finance Ministry of Russia does not expedite issuing the state loan to Belarus. “This work is done in the framework of the Finance Ministry of Russia, and so far we are working with the information which had been offered by the Belarusian side to us, and which concerns evaluation of their macroeconomic prospects,” Strochak said.