Russian Ministry of Finance: We haven’t discussed credit terms

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin has stated that there is no agreed time frame for extending a $1 billion stabilization loan to Belarus.

“We have not given any promises,” D. Pankin said to “Interfax”. The terms for extending the loan had not been discussed in fact, he added.

“We have only one criterion – to find agreement on macroeconomic measures, and it could be done over a week, or we could fail to find agreement for the life term,” deputy minister explained. As said by him, “We should understand what they are going to do in their country with the currency exchange rate and budget expenses, with stimulating the home economy.”

However it was hard for him to say whether the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation had received documents on macroeconomic measures from Belarus.

According to unofficial sources, on March 31 in the evening the government of Belarus submitted a draft project of measures for macroeconomic situation stabilization. Aligning of measures with the government of Russia is a precondition for giving a Russian state loan of $ 1 billion.

On Monday a source in the state administration bodies of Belarus informed that “the draft programme was given to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation on Thursday evening. There hasn’t been an answer from the Russian side for today.”