Over the year the loan debt of Belarusian enterprises to banks has grown by factor of 1.32.
At the moment the bank system of Belarus has all the necessary resources for providing further loan services to the country's economy, stated Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Belarus (NBRB) Pyotr Prakapovich today reporting to Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The top bank head stressed that not only state banks, but private banks are involved with lending activities.
It should be noted that the statement of Prakapovich was made after the results of credit activities in H1 2010 were stated, AFN writes.
As of July 1, 2010 as compared to July 1 last year the loan debt of enterprises to the banks has increased by the factor of 1.32, financing of state programs was increased by the factor of 1.4, and financing of construction has been increased by the factor of 1.54.
Telling about loans, the head of the National Bank of Belarus boasted that according to the results of H1 interest rates for loans available to legal entities persons were reduced by more than 5 percentage points.
Thus, in while in January the interest rates averaged more than 21%, in June the figure dropped to 16.5%, with the interest rates for loans available to juridical persons as low as 15.4%.
However, things would look not so cheerful if the head of the NBRB would tie the work of the printing press (lending growth) with such rates as decrease of gold and foreign currency reserves by $128.9 million (2.3%) since the beginning of the year – from $ 5652.5 million to $5523.6 million as of July 1, 2010 (the real decrease is about $1.4 billion, unless one counts the last tranche from the IMF, $670 million, and Gazprom payment for shares of Beltrasngaz, $625 million) and growth of adverse balance of payments, $1.813 billion summing up the results of the 5 months of this tear.
The gold and foreign currency reserves and balance of foreign trade are not reassuring, and that could not be explained by the new terms of Russian oil and oil products deliveries to the country, as these losses are compensated by the spike in potassium fertilizers export.
So the conclusion is: growth of lending just contributes to fulfillment of gross guidelines for figures for this year, but not to revival of the country's economy. Moreover, the further credit portfolio growth would inevitably increase pressure at the currency market, and amid shortfall of currency revenues could bring about such unpopular measures as administrative restrictions for buying currency for foreign contracts and a new devaluation.
Although Prakapovich stated that there is every condition in Belarus for the exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble against the basket of currencies to fluctuate by as little as 2-3% till the end of the year., there are no real grounds for such optimism, at least considering the fact of Belarus' joining the Customs Union. Not only the export duties for Russian oil and oil products are maintained, since now Belarus would have to pay the contractual price for gas, and not the favourable price of 2009.
And the major events of the next year –the beginning of the heating season and the election campaign – are still to come…
Source: Charter'97 :: News from Belarus
0 comments:
Post a Comment