Official says Minsk needs Russia’s $600 mln state loan no more

MINSK, Oct 25 (PRIME) -- Belarus is not asking for a U.S. $600 million state loan from Russia anymore as it doesn’t need it, Belarusian Finance Minister Maxim Yermolovich told reporters on Friday.

“We are not considering a loan from the government of the Russian Federation as a source of financing, and we are not in negotiations on the loan. We provided no requests to the Russian side. We don’t count on receiving the Russian loan,” he said.

Belarus has ensured financing for the year and has a clear understanding of the financing sources for 2020. “So we have no need in any political loans,” he said.

Belarus plans to obtain a loan from China amounting to 3.5 billion Chinese yuan, or about $500 million, in 2019. “I hope that we will finish work on this loan until the end of 2019. We plan to get the loan this year,” he said.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in October 2018 that the ministry will consider providing an around $630 million loan to Belarus in 2019 for refinancing its debt to Russia, and Minsk applied for the loan in early 2019. In June, Yermolovich said that Belarus still planned to use the loan to redeem its liabilities in 2020–2021.

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