The Belarusian negotiators headed by the Beltransgaz’s general director Dmitry Kazakov continue requesting the Gazprom’s payment delay. The Belarusian debt to Gazprom comprises over 500 million dollars .As stipulated by the contract, it is today that the Belarusian party is to repay the debt, the Novaya Gazeta writes.
The first half year Belarus was paying USD 55 per thousand cubic meters (not withstanding the fact that last year, the parties agreed on the USD 100 price) and asked Russia to lend it USD 1, 5 billion. Russia has not lent the money, yet (though the loan granting is not to be excluded but not as support to the neighboring people but as one of the pre-electoral game moves of the Kremlin) and the debt to the Gazprom has increased up to half- billion US dollars. Though the Gazprom paid for the Beltransgaz shares bargained in the course of the New Year eve’s negotiations and transferred USD 625 million dollars. But the money, according to the experts, has been used for the forex market operations for mending another couple of holes in the country’s budget, which has been dynamically turning into a strainer over the last half year.
The financial crises has not knocked the Belarusians down, yet. But over half year after the Russian gas price-raise the apartment payment, vodka and transport fees have gone up in Belarus. Low prices for all those items were among the reasons for Lukashenka being high estimated by the electorate. The price-hike curbing has not been managed, yet, but Alyaksandr Lukashenka has already signed the directive”On saving and economizing’. The posters of the seventies “Economy to be Economical” is likely to be removed from the basements, and after the dust being shaken from them to be installed all over the country. But the Gazprom top-management is not likely to be moved by such actions. According to the information from the sources close to the concern management, the Russian party is to raise the price for Belarus up to USD 280 thousand cubic meters. Then the crises of the Belarusian economy will be totally forgotten, and the collapse will come to the picture. However, the presidential election in Belarus is not to come soon and the vodka and transport-fee price raise can be afforded painlessly.
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