Russia is ready to consider the republic’s requests to help refinance its debt to Moscow, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said. According to him, the Eurasian Fund will not be able to satisfy the requests of Minsk alone.
Anton Siluanov
(Photo: Andrey Lyubimov / RBC)
Russia is ready to discuss with Belarusian partners the issue of refinancing the republic’s debt obligations, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told journalists on February 16, RBC correspondent reports.
“We see the need for support in the refinancing of Belarusian debt obligations to external creditors, primarily to the Russian Federation, in the conditions of restrictions that have affected our neighbor. Here we are ready to consider the proposals of the Belarusian partners,” the minister explained.
We are talking about refinancing the main debt of Belarus to the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD) and Russia – in 2022, this will require a little less than $1 billion, Siluanov specified.
Commenting on the intention of Minsk to apply to the EFSD for a loan of $3.5 billion, Siluanov pointed out that the fund does not have such money. According to him, Moscow will decide in what proportion credit support can be provided to Belarus through the EFSD and/or Russian state loans.
In early December 2021, the United States imposed another round of sanctions against Belarus. One of its key elements was sectoral sanctions against the Belarusian public debt: the US Treasury banned American citizens and organizations from providing new loans to the Ministry of Finance and the Development Bank of Belarus (owned by the government) or buying new government bonds for a period of more than 90 days. Until September, the Ministry of Finance of Belarus placed dollar bonds on the domestic market, but after the sanctions, this became impossible.