Opinions & Interviews

“This year we have faced the new challenges such as the contraction of export in price terms, first of all, across such commodity groups as oil products and potassium. The government, the National Bank, and the banking sector have joined efforts to take corresponding measures to stabilize the situation on the foreign exchange market. The situation looks to remain stable till the end of the year,” the NBRB chairman of the board said.

In his words, during today’s meeting Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko once again urged the government and the National Bank to do their best to continue providing sufficient financial support to the real production sector.

“Foreign partners also have confidence in the Belarusian banking system. Banks do not reduce the resource base. They have been increasing it using the funds of non-residents. People in Belarus also have confidence in the banking system. This can be illustrated by the certain dynamics in the volume of people’s deposits,” Pavel Kallaur said.

However, there are certain issues of concern. For example, macroeconomic adjustments of 2015 and 2016 had a certain impact on the financial standing of enterprises and, consequently, on the banking sector. “We can see that bad assets are on the rise in the banking sector. Now this figure makes up 14.3%. But thanks to the measures that had been already taken and will be taken by the government and the National Bank by the end of the year we can say for sure that the situation will be manageable. Bad assets will not exceed a limit of overriding concern,” the NBRB chairman of the board said.