Economy minister: absence of loans hinders GDP growth

Economy Minister of Belarus Mikalai Snapkou finds the rate of growth of the economy’s crediting insufficient.

The official states that the bank system prevents hitting the targets of the economy growth. On the other hand, he states that the volume of credit financing has increased because of the growth of the external overdue accounts receivable, Interfax reports.

According to the economy minister, the situation in the bank sphere prevents achievement of the targets for this year, and it is necessary to reach the targeted salary growth, primarily by reducing costs in the real economy. It is necessary to attract the planned amount of investment resources and to use them effectively, he said addressing the session of the Council of Ministers and speaking about the analysis of the results of the socio-economic development of Belarus in H1, 2010.

According to him, in H1 2010 the growth of banks’ requirements to the economy was 12.6%, while the resulting figures by the end of the year are planned to be 36-40% by the targeted goals of 2010.

M. Snapkou also finds shortage of long-term crediting one of the reasons for failure to hit the targets in the rate of growth of capital investments. “In H1 the growth of investments was to make 15%, but in fact it was 4%,” the minister said.