MINSK, 30 March (BelTA) – As much as $500 million has been transferred to Belarus as the first tranche of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD), BelTA learned from the Belarusian Finance Ministry website.
The website reads: “Belarus has fulfilled the conditions for getting the first tranche of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development financial loan that was signed in Moscow on 25 March. As much as $500 million was transferred to the national budget on 30 March.”
Earlier representatives of the Eurasian Development Bank, which is the bank in charge of managing EFSD assets, explained that the loan will be granted to Belarus in seven tranches in 2016-2018. The other six tranches will be provided depending on Belarus' fulfillment of other requirements. Two tranches are supposed to be transferred in 2016, another three in 2017, and another one in 2018.
According to representatives of the Eurasian Development Bank, the loan is intended to support the reform program of the Belarus government and the central bank. The program comprises two major blocks of economic policy measures: the creation of macroeconomic prerequisites for economic growth and the realization of market reforms meant to stabilize economic growth.
BelTA reported earlier that in H1 2015 Belarus contacted the EurAsEC Anticrisis Fund (which is now known as the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development) with a request for a new loan as large as $3 billion. In the course of negotiations the initially specified sum of $3 billion dropped to $2 billion.
In 2015 Russia lent $110 million to Belarus for the sake of paying interest on the Russian loan that Belarus received in 2010. Apart from that, in July 2015 the Belarusian Finance Ministry received $760 million as a Russian state loan for servicing and paying the loans previously issued to Belarus by Russia and the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development.
