BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

15/08/2007

Belarus to Untie Its Ruble from the Russian One

Starting from 2008, Belarus will no longer tie its outlook for the rate of exchange of its ruble to the rate of exchange of Russia's ruble, Interfax reported with reference to the draft guidelines of the National Bank of Belarus.

For Belarus' ruble, the sole point of reference will be the U.S. dollar. Next year, the national currency of Belarus is forecasted to fluctuate 2.5 percent both up and down. The same corridor was predicted for this year.

Another novelty of the National Bank of Belarus is the refusal to use active supply of rubles as the monetary benchmark starting from 2008.

When it comes to the RF ruble, the opinion of Belarus was quite different in the fall of 2006, when its National Bank even announced the conversion of a portion of its foreign exchange/gold reserves into the rubles of Russia. Then, the bank said that Russia's rubles were nearing hard currencies in parameters.

Source:

http://www.kommersant.com/p-11252/Ruble_Belarus/

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