There is no obvious need for a new stand-by program of the International Monetary Fund for Belarus. It was informed by Finance Minister, Andrei Kharkovets. "The situation in economy is much more stable today, the budget is being executed in the parameters we expected, there is steady economic growth", the head of Ministry of Finance believes.
According to Andrei Kharkovets, the previous program of the International Monetary Fund was fulfilled successfully and played its positive part: «Since that time, a lot of things have changed, the funding gap is reduced significantly». The minister also added that any program like this «in principle, is positive in terms of structural reforms and operation of economy», BelTA informs.
Answering journalist’s question whether Belarus is satisfied with 4.7% share of the import duties in the Customs Union, Andrei Kharkovets said that «this figure does not worsen the situation for our country». Furthermore, the Finance Minister noted that there remain possibilities for revision of this share in the future.
Finance Ministry has no plans to revise the state budget because of Russian gas prices rising
Andrei Kharkovets also answered the question about possible actions of Finance Ministry in connection with the fact that the average price for Russian gas will be above 166 dollars per thousand cubic meters, according to which the budget was planned. «While, we do not plan to revise anything», PRIME-TASS quotes the Minister.
As Telegraf previously reported, the deputy chairman of Gazprom, Andrei Kruglov, on March 26, announced that this year the average price of Russian gas for Minsk will be 171.5 dollars for thousand cubic meters. «Basing on previous agreements, in 2010, we apply 0.9 reduction factor», Andrei Kruglov said.
