The International Monetary Fund is "concerned and puzzled"by the fact that Belarus has failed to comply with the commitments made at the opening of the 2008 lending program. This was stated by the head of the IMF in Belarus Natalia Kolyadina. As she says, the Belarusian government has promised to reduce the burden on state banks in lending to enterprises, by establishing a specialized agency, but failed to do so.
«We are concerned and puzzled why the financial agency has not been established yet. The establishment of such agencies in the medium term would help to stabilize the banking system,» Natalia Kolyadina informed.
According to the IMF representative, having transferred credits under the state program to a specialized agency, the banks would be able to change the methods and style of their management and become more attractive to investors, Reuters reports.
Natalia Kolyadina also noted that Belarus does not hurry with the promised privatization of state enterprises. Thus, in agreement with the IMF, the government would sell any five competitive enterprises at the auction. However, according to the IMF representative, the companies, put up for auction by the State, are of no interest for investors.
So, on Thursday, September 23, the State Property Committee of Belarus announced the cancellation of a scheduled on this day auction for five small companies’ shares due to the lack of applications. «Under the program, the Belarusian government had to put up five competitive enterprises for sale. The offered enterprises were not represented in the program,» Nataliya Kolyadina commented.
As Telegraf reported, Natalia Kolyadina had previously noted that much of the IMF program had been carried out in Belarus. «Now it’s important not to lose but to enlarge everything done under the program, as well as to use it in making Belarusian economy grow more rapidly in the future and also in maintaining macroeconomic stability,» the head of the IMF in Belarus declared. Another IMF mission is likely to begin its work in late October — early November this year.
In turn, chairman of the National Bank of Belarus Petr Prokopovich said that Belarus intends to continue working with the IMF, without attracting fund loans in the future though.
