English

Lukashenka: Belarusians will forget about currency crisis before year-end

The Belarusians will "forget" about the country's currency crisis by the end of the year, Alyaksandr Lukashenka promised at a meeting with a group of Russian reporters in Minsk on October 7, BelaPAN said.

"We have always had a shortage of foreign currency," Mr. Lukashenka acknowledged. "But for me it's much easier now, as Russia is having the same problems, Russia is spending $2 billion every day to support the Russian ruble's exchange rate. We have no such money, but the situation has stabilized. We will forget about this problem by the end of the year."

Mr. Lukashenka expressed surprise at the Russian media's coverage of the economic problems in Belarus, accusing them of misreporting the situation and contributing to the country's crisis. "Certain officials who have already left their post caused a stir around Belarus," he said in an apparent dig at Aleksei Kudrin, Russia's former finance minister/deputy prime minister, who regularly criticized the Belarusian government's economic policies.

Noting that Belarus had paid a "very heavy price" for its membership in the Common Economic Zone, Mr. Lukashenka claimed that Belarusians had spent $3 billion on importing cars shortly before the country's import duties on automobiles had been raised to Russia's levels this past July. "This $3 billion would have been enough for us [to avert the crisis]," he said.

The main cause of the crisis is the prices of energy resources that have been raised by Russia "five times" over the last five years, Mr. Lukashenka said.

Mr. Lukashenka stressed that Belarus was a major market for many Russian manufacturers. In particular, he said, 70 percent of all components used in the assembly of MTZ tractors are imported from Russia. "We do not refuse to buy them, even if they fall short of the quality that our tractor needs. Our economy secures work for factories employing some 15 million people in Russia," he said.

Mr. Lukashenka expressed hope that the prices would be reduced and said that "successful" talks were underway on the subject.

The news conference was attended by the reporters who arrived in Belarus on October 4 on a tour organized by the Belarusian authorities. Eighty-six journalists representing 74 media outlets, including 53 local and 17 federal outlets, visited industrial enterprises, farms, defense facilities and social institutions in the Minsk and Homyel regions during the ninth such tour.