English

Rubel expected to remain stable this year

The National Bank of Belarus (NBB) expects the rubel's exchange rate against the world's major currencies to remain stable this year, NBB Chairman Pyotr Prakapovich told Alyaksandr Lukashenka at their meeting in Minsk on Monday, as quoted by BelaPAN.

Mr. Prakapovich said that the NBB would take efforts to ensure that the rubel's fluctuations against the currency basket that includes the euro, the US dollar and the Russian ruble would not exceed two or three percent before the end of the year, according to the presidential press office.

The rubel's rate rose by 1.1 percent against the currency basket in the first six months of this year, while the country's gold and foreign exchange reserves calculated according to the national standards exceeded $6 billion as of July 1, he said.

Mr. Prakapovich told the Belarusian leader that the banking sector had satisfied the economy's entire demand for loans from January through June. The amount of bank loans provided for state programs rose by 40 percent year-on-year in the period, while soft housing loans increased in amount by 54 percent.

The NBB chairman stressed that "lending for the economy has been secured by all banks and not only state ones."

Interest rates on loans were cut from over 21 percent to an average of 15.4 percent for economic entities in the first six months, he said, adding that the NBB base refinance rate had been lowered from 14 to 11.5 percent and further cuts were expected in the third and fourth quarters.

Mr. Prakapovich noted that Belarusian banks had managed to boost their liquidity in the first two quarters of this year.

He expressed hope that enterprises would "present more efficient projects [to banks] and the pace of lending in the second half-year will be faster than in the first one."