OREANDA-NEWS. The National Bank of Belarus (NBB) will not go as far as to restrain the ruble’s exchange rate amid high demand for foreign currency, NBB chief Nadezhda Yermakova told an online conference held by Belta on Wednesday.

The NBB chairwoman has come up with her explanation of the latest drop of the Belarusian ruble putting the blame on the situation in foreign trade and a change in consumer behaviour.

According to Yermakova, the NBB will not deliberately restrain the plunge of the Belarusian ruble, if the demand for foreign currency continues to outweigh the supply, however the country’s central bank will act to mitigate the swings of the exchange rate.

Yermakova would not go as far as to predict what will be the exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble at the end of 2013. At the same time, in her opinion, the average annual rate of the Belarusian ruble at Br9,500/USD 1 to the dollar in 2014 can hardly be called an optimistic forecast.