Belarus Finance Minister says political loans not needed

Belarus has been provided with sources of funding for 2019 and there are plans for 2020, said Finance Minister Maksim Yermalovich. According to him, "there is absolutely no need for any political loans," BelTA informs.

Yermalovich says there are no negotiations with Moscow on a loan of up to $600 million from the Russian government and no requests have been sent regarding it. At the same time, the Belarusian government hopes to get a Chinese loan of 3.5 billion yuan by the end of the year, which is about $500 million. A decision by the Bank of China is yet to be received.

According to Euroradio, the external public debt of Belarus increased in August and amounted to $16.6 billion on September 1. During the eight months of 2019, our country raised $806.5 million in state loans. During the same period, $1,145.6 million was paid on the external public debt. The gold and foreign exchange reserves of Belarus decreased by $60 million in September.