MINSK, 27 October (BelTA) – Prerequisites have been created in Belarus for reducing inflation to 5% per annum in 2020. The information was released by First Deputy Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) Taras Nadolny during the plenary session of the second international CIS finance and banking forum Minsk Business Meetings on 27 October, BelTA has learned.
The official remarked that it is necessary to reduce inflation to at least 12% in Belarus in 2016. “We intend to reach 9% in 2017. By 2020 we intend to get the best result in the history of independent Belarus — 5%. The monetary targeting instrument that we now use to control the broad money supply creates all the prerequisites for us to secure this result,” stressed Taras Nadolny. So far the lowest inflation in Belarus on record has been 6%.
The First Deputy Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus remarked that the national financial market has been developing quite vigorously in the last 15 years. “There is still room for growth but the dynamics of financial sector growth slowed down in the last five years. The national economy growth pace has slowed down as well. However, according to IMF estimates, in 2017 the Belarusian economy will recover from recession and will demonstrate modest economic growth. We intend to increase the GDP by 1.7% next year,” said Taras Nadolny.
The country's central bank is busy putting together a strategy to develop Belarus' financial market in the period till 2020. The document is supposed to be ready by the end of the year, said Taras Nadolny. The main guidelines include efforts to bolster the role of market mechanisms in the operation of financial market institutions, a more prominent role for the stock market, efforts to speed up the development of non-banking financial organizations and insurance companies, and wider adoption of digital technologies in the financial market. “Apart from that, in 2019 we intend to fully assimilate all the international Basel III standards as norms for the safe operation of the banking industry,” said Taras Nadolny.
The second international CIS finance and banking forum Minsk Business Meetings is scheduled to take place in Belarus on 26-29 October. It gathered representatives of government agencies, banks, private sector institutions of the Commonwealth of Independent States as well as international development institutions, including those from Europe and Asia.
The forum is dedicated to new challenges and capabilities of banking systems of the CIS states, the development of financial and banking markets of the CIS states, the development of measures to overcome crisis phenomena in banking industry, the formation of the common insurance market, and the enabling of conditions conducive to investment cooperation of the CIS member states.
