Belarus and Russia have agreed on a new loan of approximately $1 billion, Belarus’ Deputy Prime Minister Uladzimir Syamashka says.
Last week’s meeting of presidents Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Uladzimir Putin resulted in the reopening of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development credit line. According to Lukashenka, Belarus and Russia regulated ‘all the disputable issues in bilateral relations’.
“Belarus will get the third and fourth tranches, each amounting to $300 million, a total of $600 million a year, on very favorable terms, at low interest rates and so on. An instruction was also made to allocate an additional loan of some $1 billion on favorable terms,” Syamashka commented on the outcome of the meeting in St. Petersburg.
As reported earlier, the leaders of Belarus and Russia also claimed they had settled a long gas and oil conflict between the countries.
At the same time, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has stressed on Tuesday that Moscow is only ‘considering’ providing a loan to Minsk.
“The Presidents have had a meeting focused on financial cooperation and lending issues. We’re currently considering the issue,” he said and added that the issue was about ‘an interstate credit to support the budget and balance of payments (of Belarus) in the amount of up to $1 bln’.
