BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

24/03/2010

Russia Sberbank promises huge loans to Belarus cos

MINSK, March 24 (Reuters) - Sberbank (SBER03.MM), Russia's biggest lender, promised hundreds of million dollars worth of loans to Belarussian companies at a time when Russia's loan market is stagnating.

The money will come in handy for Belarus, whose economy has been badly hit as demand deteriorates for its goods in Russia and Europe, its chief export markets.

State-controlled Sberbank has recently acquired BPS bank from the Belarus government and may play a major role in Minsk's plans for debt issuance this year. [ID:nGEE5B22EJ]

"Sberbank has significant resources of free liquidity ... We will aim at providing several hundred million dollars worth of loans to several major Belarussian companies," Sberbank's head German Gref said during a visit to Minsk on Wednesday. Sberbank accounts for roughly a quarter of the total banking assets in Russia and expects its loan portfolio to grow by around 10 percent in 2010 as crisis-hit Russian companies are unwilling to borrow amid global economic uncertainty.

Last year a pool of Russian banks including Sberbank, VEB and Alfa Bank provided a 6 billion roubles ($203 million) to Belarus. (Reporting by Andrei Makhovskiy; Writing by Dmitry Sergeyev; Editing by David Holmes)

Source:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE62N1UC20100324


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