Sputnik Belarus: EDB announces its conditions for making a loan to Belarus and waits for the EFSD Council's decision

Dmitry Pankin, the head of Eurasian Development Bank, stated that they had agreed with the Belarusian authorities all conditions necessary for the provision of a loan to the country from the Eurasian Fund for Stabilisation and Development (EFSD) and that now it was the Fund's Council to make a final decision. Belarus expects the EFSD to provide a US $2-3 billion loan for reforms aimed at macroeconomic stabilisation. It was reported before that the Fund's Council could consider Belarus' application for the loan in Q4 2015. EDB expects that inflation in Belarus will slow by the end of the year. "The monetary measures and all steps Belarus should take such as reducing subsidies for the utilities tariffs and lending to the economy have been practically agreed," Dmitry Pankin said to Russian journalists on Thursday. He also said that the financial support from the EFSD was aimed at not only providing necessary financial assistance, but coordinating macroeconomic policies within the EEU because the programmes approved by the Fund were, in essence, a "framework for reform." As reported earlier, the EFSD insists that the Belarusian authorities should strengthen reform and take into account the mistakes of the 2011-2013 stabilisation programme. The programme was supported by a US $3 billion stabilisation credit from the EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Fund (later transformed into the EFSD). However, Belarus did not receive the last tranche of US $440 million because of default. The National Bank and government's programme submitted to the EFSD as part of the application for a new credit envisions reductions in funding for new state programmes and subsidies to the housing and utilities sector by means of gradual increases in the rates to cost, the liberalisation of prices and markets, and the privatisation and commercialisation of enterprises.