Finance Minister: “2013 budget will become an anchor for sustainable development”

The draft 2013 state budget is not only Minister Kharkhavets’ ridiculous comparisons but overoptimistic assumptions of the Belarusian ruble rate and promises to raise wages as well.

The draft 2013 state budget is based on estimates that the Belarusian rubel`s rate against the US dollar would be 8,950 next year, Finance Minister Andrey Kharkavets told reporters.

According to the Minister of Finance, macroeconomic efficiency maintaining is a crucial task, the state budget being “an anchor for the country’s sustainable development”.

As for independent experts, they believe the government to have started taking gradual devaluation measures.

According to Andrey Kharkavets, Belarus enters a “period of maximum external debt payments” in 2013. “The sum of payments is expected to double in comparison with this year’s payments and reach $3.1 billion,” the minister stressed.

Thereon, the government considers it necessary to refinance a part of the debt package. “We will develop the following directions: firstly, receiving two tranches of the EurAsEC Anticrisis Fund’s loan at a sum of $0.9 bn. Secondly, we have already started our work on entering the international capital markets to place there government bonds in 2013,” Kharkavets said.

Belarus is ready to implement the new program together with the International Monetary Fund, the Ministry Head stated. “An annual meeting of the Fund is to be held very soon. The Belarus delegation will consult IMF representatives. We declared earlier and declare now that Belarus is ready to put the new program into effect together with the IMF,” he stressed.

Belsat