Aleksandr Lukashenko meets with Nadezhda Yermakova to receive her report

President of the Republic of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko heard out the report of Chairperson of the Board of the National Bank of Belarus Nadezhda Yermakova on 6 February.

The head of state was briefed on the state of affairs on the foreign currency market, the financing of housing construction and other national programs.

"I should say that you are so far working well with bankers and the government regarding the implementation of the programs that we had outlined to stabilize the situation," Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.

"If the economy operates well and people work well, we will be able to return to previous salaries of individuals and can exceed the figures within 1-1.5 years. We can earn good money so that people would feel an improvement of their lives and it is already happening. And I think that if we recover from this complicated winter in a normal way, I mean if we do not have to re-sow crops due to frost and so on, we will find the money," the head of state said.

"But we should no way print money, it is absolutely impossible," the President stressed.

Aleksandr Lukashenko remarked that today the economic situation is stable. "As far as I know we have not been spending gold and foreign currency reserves, they have increased and we can raise them more. But we should not let money stay idle. Money should work as part of the economy. Yet, we need to keep something to avoid cataclysms in the future," the President said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also drew attention to the high interest rate for loans issued by banks.

"Credit resources are very expensive. The economy, naturally, cannot stand the credit situation for a long time. Thus, the refinancing rate of the National Bank should be reduced little by little. We should send normal signals to our economy, economic operators and the refinancing rate should be lower because with the present rate any intensive development of the economy is out of the question," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The President instructed the banking system to control the efficient use of credit resources and stressed that credit resources should be provided to finance effective projects only.

The head of state stressed that this year "everyone should forget that money obtained from emission can be used to provide loans". In his words, only money that was earned will be used.

As far as the situation on the foreign currency market is concerned, over the last three months the Belarusian ruble exchange rate was stable. In late January – early February the exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble gained a bit due to larger sales of foreign currency at the foreign currency and stock exchange. According to Nadezhda Yermakova, mandatory sales of foreign currency went up about $42 million.

The President was also informed about the state of affairs regarding deposits. Nadezhda Yermakova said that the growth of foreign currency deposits outstrips the growth of Belarusian ruble deposits.

The chairperson stressed that the financial operation of the economy is good. If it stays like that, it would help effective operation of the economy a lot.

Other matters regarding the operation of the National Bank were on the agenda of the meeting, too.