Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 2 November (BelTA) – Financial matters lie outside the core of Belarus’ cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), BelTA learned from Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) Pavel Kallaur on the sidelines of the KEF 2017 conference Foundations of the Future on 2 November.

The official said: “Belarus has resorted to the IMF’s financial aid three times. The implementation of stabilization programs has helped the country overcome crisis phenomena fast in addition to avoiding a deep economic recession. At the same time financial matters were not and are not the key aspect of our interaction. Our interaction stems from consolidated work of experts with a view to implementing joint projects and finding exigent decisions.”

Pavel Kallaur remarked that Belarus does not raise the matter of emergency loans these days. “We don’t need them at present,” said the head of Belarus’ central bank.

As an example of cooperation between Belarusian and IMF experts Pavel Kallaur mentioned the program to evaluate Belarus’ financial sector and the large-scale evaluation of assets of Belarusian banks. “At present interaction with IMF experts involves a broad range of areas, including state expenses, fiscal policy, banking oversight, monetary management, statistics and accounting,” he said.

Pavel Kallaur said that for the next fiscal year the central bank alone has plans for joint work to develop the system for analyzing and forecasting monetary management and to improve the communication policy, which is particularly important ahead of the central bank’s transition to inflation targeting. “Apart from that, we will work with the Council of Ministers to effect cooperation in developing the market of troubled assets. Evaluation and management of fiscal risks in the state sector remains topical, too. These are not all the avenues of our cooperation with IMF experts in the near future. The list is open and is regularly updated taking into account new realities,” stated the head of Belarus’ central bank.

Pavel Kallaur underlined that businesslike discussions with IMF experts help work out acceptable decisions based on correct diagnoses. “Getting the diagnose right is the biggest accomplishment. International expertise helps us with that. We — I mean the economic team of the Belarusian government — know what needs to be done and work on it every day,” concluded Pavel Kallaur.