BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

25/05/2007

Belarus plans to pay off debt to Gazprom before July 23 -deputy PM

MINSK, May 25 (Itar-Tass) - Belarus plans to pay off its debt to Russia's gas giant Gazprom before July 23, Belarussian First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko told journalists on Friday.

"In January-July we pay for gas 55 percent of its price. Before July 23 we should transfer 400 million U.S. dollars to Gazprom's accounts," he was quoted by the Prime-Tass economic news agency as saying.

Semashko pointed out that the situation with debt retirement is rather uneasy, but Belarus will try to find funds to pay the debt.

According to earlier reports, Russia confirmed it might extend a credit to Belarus within the upcoming months to pay for gas supplies.

But if Russia provides the credit, it should introduce changes to the 2007 budget.

Belarus addressed to Russia with a request to allocate a 1.5-billion-dollar credit to pay for gas imports after Russian gas export prices went up.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11565737&PageNum=0