Business news

MINSK, 16 February (BelTA) - Belarus expects to receive the sixth tranche of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD) in February, Belarus’ Deputy Finance Minister Yuri Seliverstov told the media before the board session of the ministry, BelTA has learned.

“We were supposed to have received the sixth tranche by now. The process is somewhat delayed. We expected the tranche to arrive in January, but hopefully this will happen in February,” the deputy minister said.

Yuri Seliverstov noted that Belarus has failed to comply with certain parameters set out in the conditions precedent for extending the sixth tranche. “For example, we have not adopted a document to introduce the regulatory impact assessment framework to evaluate the impact of regulatory legal acts on the doing business environment. We did not have time to pass it, and our colleagues laid it as one of the conditions. Today they seek to add more parameters to the conditions precedent for the sixth and seventh tranches. We are engaged in the active discussion about this,” he said.

The deputy minister pointed out that the date of the receipt of the seventh tranche of the EFSD will depend on how quickly the parties agree on the additional parameters. The sixth and seventh tranches will total 200 million each.

It was reported earlier that on 25 March 2016 the Belarusian Finance Ministry and the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) signed an agreement on a $2 billion loan to be provided by the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD). The agreement envisages allocating the money to support economic policy measures and structural changes of the Belarusian government and the National Bank in 2016-2018. The economic policy measures and structural changes were approved by the EFSD Council. The money shall be granted in seven tranches in 2016-2018. Belarus’ government budget received $200 million as the fifth tranche of the loan on 25 October 2017.