MINSK, 7 May (BelTA) – The agreement between the Belarusian Finance Ministry and the Russian one on interbudget transactions in oil trade is nearly ready, BelTA learned from First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Dmitry Krutoi on 7 May.
According to the source, the implementation of the Belarusian-Russian arrangement that the Russian state budget will compensate the remaining part of the premiums on oil deliveries is in the final stage. “The agreement is nearly ready. I think the finance ministries are about to finalize it,” Dmitry Krutoi said.
Major Russian oil companies stopped shipping oil to Belarus on 1 January due to the absence of an agreement on prices. Belarus believed it was economically inadvisable to pay the same amounts of premiums to Russian companies. Major oil companies resumed deliveries in April. An arrangement was made that Russian companies would supply oil to Belarus without premiums, some of the premiums will be compensated for by the Russian government using interbudget transactions. On 25 March representatives of the Belarusian Finance Ministry said they had started working on the procedure for interbudget transactions in oil trade.
