Report of NBRB Chairman of Board Pavel Kallaur

    It is essential to maintain stability in the foreign currency sector and predictability of the monetary policy, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he met with Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) Pavel Kallaur on 8 September.

    In January-August Belarusians sold $362 million more than they bought. As for legal entities, the demand for foreign currency was higher than its supply only in August because of the need to repay foreign currency loans.

    “Thanks to the fact that we have moved to the floating exchange rate and stopped to hold the exchange rate fixed against other currencies, we showed to the people that we are not going to play games with them. And this is right, we must adhere to this policy,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

    The head of state believes that the National Bank and the government should not pay attention to the criticism of their manual mode of economic management. “You can choose any mode you like to produce results. There is no time to complain,” the President said. “Probably, we will face even more difficult times, and let’s hope that we will cope with them like we are doing today. The situation in the world does not depend on us. We should adjust to it.”

    The situation in all segments of the Belarusian economy, including in the foreign currency sector, is rather calm, the monetary policy is stable and predictable, the President said. “This is very good. We should keep this trend,” he stressed.

    In the near future the head of state will be informed about the situation with prices on the consumer market. Aleksandr Lukashenko is going to take a close look at the state of affairs and even analyze the situation with certain goods. The head of state stressed that he is, first of all, concerned about prices for everyday consumer goods. The President reminded that he had instructed the government to monitor consumer market prices and to take administrative measures to curb inflation; however, there should be no excessive measures which can cause the deficit of goods.