National Bank: “Why should President sign something like this?”

Belarusian media have published the information that the National Bank had no right to establish currency exchange rates against the Belarusian rouble, higher than the previous ones by more than 50%. According to the Decree No.597 dated November 19, 2010, by which Aliaksandr Lukashenka set the basic tendencies of this year's money-credit policy, fluctuations of the rouble rate should not surpass +/-8% to the cost of the currency basket.

However, they are convinced in Piotr Prakapovich's office that establishing currency exchange rates against the Belarusian rouble is primarily the function of the National Bank. The head of the National Bank's information center Anatol Drazdou has told this to:

Anatol Drazdou: “It is not the President's business to sign a decree on changing the exchange rate of the national currency. This is not the "Tsar's business", and should be solved by the concrete institution - the National Bank. Why should President sign something like this? The National Bank takes decisions in the framework of its competence, which includes establishing of currency exchange rates”.

Anatol Drazdou has underlined that the devaluation of the Belarusian rouble by 20% on January 2, 2009 was set by the resolution of the National Bank's administration.

“The word "devaluation" is not present in our decision! [This year's - Euroradio's comment]” — Anatol Drazdou has underlined.

Truly, there was not the word "devaluation" in this year's documents. There wasn't such a word in 2009 either: rouble's fall by 20% was explained as "one-time correction of the rate" in terms of "considerable devaluation of national currencies' rates against the U.S. dollar in the countries - basic partners of the Republic of Belarus".

However, the process remains the same: Belarusian rouble got cheaper by more than 50% against dollar, euro and Russian rouble. It turns out that the National Bank claimed responsibility for that.

Photo: www.ej.by