Minsk — In 2017 Russia to fully refinance all debt of Belarus in the amount of $ 750-800 million. This follows from the statements of the first Vice-Premier of Belarus Vasily Matyushevsky posted on 4 April on the website of the Council of Ministers.
As noted by Deputy Prime Minister, this issue was discussed on 3 April at a meeting of the presidents of Belarus and Russia, “reached a principled decision about refinancing in the current year the debt of Belarus”.
“It was about refinancing those debts, which we have developed in the framework of our bilateral agenda. This question was considered last year, and now we have returned to it and found a possible principled resolution,” Matyushevsky said.
According to him, the result reached by the heads of state of Russia agreements to refinance all debt of Belarus, which fall due in 2017. “We’re talking about refinancing debt that we repaid under our loans for the current year. It is about 750-800 million principal debt and interest to maturity this year,” — said Deputy Prime Minister.
It should be noted that payments of Belarus on external and domestic public debt in the current year amount to about $ 3.5 billion. Of them for payments on the external debt is planned to spend 1.8 billion dollars on inner — 1.7 billion. The largest amounts in repayment of external debt this year Belarus should pay (741,3 milliondollars), Eurasian Fund for stabilization and development (of 487.9 million) and China (381,7 million dollars).
Matyushevsky also said that Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin on 3 April and discussed “cooperation of Belarus with the Eurasian Fund for stabilization and development.”
“Vladimir Putin was informed about the implementation of the Belarus programme in the framework of the Eurasian Fund for stabilization and development, specific issues and rough edges that were in the framework of this program,” — said Deputy Prime Minister.
In his opinion, these issues are not of a fundamental character. “At the level of the President of Russia we have received support our initiatives in terms of further continuation of this program. Vladimir Putin promised to render all possible assistance to the program with EFSR continued,” Matyushevsky said.
In the spring of 2016 the Belarusian authorities signed the credit program of the receipt of the Eurasian Fund for stabilization and development loan of $ 2 billion, which is available in seven tranches. For the trenches the Belarusian government must implement a package of measures to reform the economy.
At the moment the Belarusian side has received two tranches of the Eurasian credit — $ 500 million in March 2016, $ 300 million in July. The Finance Ministry of Belarus earlier expected to receive the third tranche of the EDB loan (also $ 300 million) in October 2016, but that did not happen.
The EFSR meeting of the Council, which is chaired by the Minister of Finance of Russia, this year was not carried out.
Belarusian analysts believe that the delay in the allocation of the third tranche of the Eurasian credit is the consequence of the oil and gas dispute of Moscow and Minsk could not settle for more than a year.
