OREANDA-NEWS. January 26, 2009. Belarus and Russia are engaged in the negotiations to grant Belarus a Russian loan at the amount of RUB 100 billion, Vice-Premier of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov told reporters on January 23.

“This is a rather provisional amount. The Russian side has not taken on any obligations to provide Belarus with this loan, as was the case of the second USD 1 billion tranche of the stabilization loan,” Andrei Kobyakov.

“The 100 billion Russian rubles is not meant to resolve the payment deficit as we are already taking steps to create “the safety cushion”. This money is to help expand or at least maintain the Belarus-Russia bilateral trade,” the Vice-Premier said. It means that this loan is necessary to support the economic entities of Belarus and Russia which are interested in cooperation but cannot get an affordable loan.

“This is the essence of our proposal. It coincides with the goal to make the Russian ruble the CIS regional currency that is the currency of payments between the countries. At present, the Russian ruble is used to pay 90% of the Belarusian export to Russia, and 40% of the import, the remaining 60% being paid in dollars and euro.”

“We understand Russia’s proposal. Let’s switch to the Russian ruble in payments. However, in order to substitute dollars and euro with the Russian ruble, certain loan resources are needed and, of course, not at market prices,” he said.

According to him, this will be the subject of the further negotiations. “Yesterday the first round of negotiations was held, the sides shared their views. We agreed to continue negotiations,” Andrei Kobyakov said.