Sergey Chaliy: “Gold value recourses will hold out till the beginning of the next year”



Belarus will get another tranche of IMF credit not earlier than the second half of October. Petr Prokopovich, the head of the National Bank of Republic of Belarus announced about it. According to his words, there are technical reasons for such a long pause. The reporter of www.Euramost.org asked the economist Sergey Chaliy how badly it can thread Belarus.

-- The payment of another IMF tranche in the end of October – is it a delay or there are really technical reasons for this?

-- There are really bureaucratic procedures there. First the mission should have come, and then they should have made a note that we meet their conditions and only after this it would be given to their council of directors. The council of directors will make up the decision. It’s an ordinary procedure.

-- How unpleasant for our government this not-a-delay will be?

-- I think that IMF made it on purpose because as a result of communication the mission made a note. And in this note they have written that “there is progress in preparation of acts on creating the Agency on Privatization”. And on October 1 one will be able see if works. So far it was difficult for IMF to appraise if we meet the conditions well. And this is the main issue and is can play its role too.

-- Considering gold value of the country, will this delay be painful?

-- It will not be critical. This tranche won’t solve the question. We spend approximately 300-400 million dollars a month to support the course. And the tranche will be approximately 690 million dollars. In the situation when there is an imbalance of payments it can be liquidated by increasing external liabilities or by spending gold value recourses. In our country the both happen.

-- Today there is a not very good situation with credits – except this tranche from IMF we can’t expect any other. Even from Russia…

-- Russia tries to retract solving the question but it can happen that appropriating of the last tranche, 500 millions, credit of 2 billions, which was discussed in 2007 and which should have bee got completely last year and it is written in the act “About budget” of Russia. And law act is law. It must be carried out anyway. Sooner or later they must credit us the full amount anyway. All the more the agreement about this credit was in the “package agreement”: we agree for a graduate passing to a world price for gas and this money would go for the softening of this passing.

-- Anyway the credits are not great and often. For how long will our gold value recourses hold out?

-- We spend approximately 1 million dollars a quarter. We have 3 billions now. Till the end of the year we will get two tranches from IMF and possibly 500 million dollars from Russia. It will be enough till the end of the year and several months more.

-- And afterwards?

-- According to the rumors there is information that in February, when another mission of IMF will come here by the results of our cooperation they can give us not one-time credit as they gave us, but a more “long” and of a bigger amount. So, if we behave, we’ll get more money.

-- Is it really possible that Belarus will make such reforms in economy and IMF will agree to give us “longer and bigger” money?

-- We don’t have any other variants. Either we go be the way agreed with IMF or we will make nonsense as acts #991 or #1000. The fight for choosing the way is happening now. We haven’t passed the return point yet. I hope for the crisis to be a whip from the behind and the money from IMF from the front and all this will push us to do the right things. And I hope we won’t return to a human control and administrative measures.

Vasil SLUSHNY.