Year’s delay: Eurasian Development Bank extends sixth tranche of credit to Belarus


The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), acting as the Resources Manager of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development, extended the sixth tranche of the EFSD financial credit, totalling US $200 million, to Belarus.

The country has already disbursed US $1.8 bn (including previous instalments) out of the total of US $2 billion envisioned to support its reform programme.

The conditions precedent for extending the sixth tranche was the nation’s fulfilment of 25 indicators, out of which five, including three control indicators, have not been met by the deadline (1 October 2017). The control measures that failed were aimed to support small and medium-sized enterprises by issuing a governmental resolution to implement regulatory impact assessment (RIA) of the draft legislation that influences the doing of business; create the institution of a business ombudsman; and stimulate the labour market by speeding up staff optimisation at state-owned enterprises and retraining those dismissed in line with market requirements. The key purpose of the indicative measures that have not been fulfilled was to restrain the inflationary pressure exerted by excess money supply.

The Fund’s Council decided to grant release with respect to all the indicators that have not been met since Belarus had managed to fulfil additional conditions for the provision of the sixth tranche agreed with the Resources Manager as recommended by the EFSD Expert Council. In particular, the joint guidelines of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy on substantiating the draft legislation in financial and economic terms were supplemented with the requirement to implement RIA as one of the key mechanisms to reduce pressure on business development. In March 2018, the National Bank of Belarus amended its prudential regulations to constrain excessive consumer lending as one of the potential adverse factors that influences the dynamics of non-performing debts and worsens the balance of trade.

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Minsk got the sixth tranche with a year’s delay receiving the funds just before the meeting of Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin in Mahiliou.

СК, belsat.eu, via Eurasian Development Bank

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