OREANDA-NEWS  On 07 October was announced, that Belarusian companies’ foreign currency proceeds rose 55.8% on the year in January-August to U.S. USD 26.397 billion.

Of the total amount, commodity export proceeds rose 58.9% on the year in January-August to USD 23.562 billion, services export proceeds rose 29.8% to USD 2.441 billion, proceeds from domestic trade for foreign exchange hiked 60.4% to USD 369 million. Other proceeds increased 190% to USD 26 million.

The share of commodity export proceeds stood at 89.3% of the total foreign proceeds as of September 1, 2008, up 1.8 percentage points year-on-year, service export proceeds at 9.2%, down 1.8 percentage points.

Corporate foreign currency proceeds from the CIS rose 38.3% on the year in January-August to USD 10.052 billion, including proceeds from Russia at USD 8.144 billion, up 34.3% on the year.

Belarus companies’ currency proceeds from non-CIS countries went up 68.9% on the year in the period to USD 16.345 billion.

Of all total currency proceeds, the share of the U.S. dollar decreased 23.3 percentage points from September 1, 2007 to 31.9% as of September 1, 2008, the share of the Russian ruble decreased 3.7 percentage points to 29%, the share of the euro rose 26.9 percentage point to 37.8%, the share of the Belarusian ruble was at 0.4%, unchanged, and the share of other currencies was at 0.9%, up from 0.8%.

The growing share of the euro was due to the change in euros in oil product trade starting December 21, 2007 that came in the wake of U.S. sanctions against the Belneftekhim concern.

In 2007, currency proceeds of Belarusian companies rose 27% on the year to USD 27.659 billion.