BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

17/11/2008

Belarus cbank bans advance payment on imports

MINSK, Nov 17 (Reuters) - The Central Bank of Belarus has banned Belarussian companies from paying in advance for imported goods to curb outflows of currency during times of crisis, the bank said on Monday.

'(This) is to prevent the global financial crisis from negatively impacting Belarus through currency outflows,' the bank said in a statement.

Though Belarus says it has not been hard hit in the first months of the global financial crisis, in September its state gold reserves declined by more than 10 percent as demand for currency grew on the domestic market.

Belarussian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky said in Monday in London that Belarus's priority was to support the real economy, including the import-export sector.

A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was in Minsk for talks at Belarus's request for a $2 billion loan on Monday, which officials have described as a precautionary measure against the impact of the global financial crisis.

In October, Belarus Gross Domestic Product was 10.6 percent higher than a year earlier, he said, predicting inflation for 2008 as a whole would be between 10 and 12 percent.

(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Ron Askew)

Source:

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/11/17/afx5703588.html

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