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Lukashenka denies plans for fresh rubel devaluation

 

Alyaksandr Lukashenka on Saturday denied the government’s plans to devalue the Belarusian rubel again, but said that the authorities would not maintain the national currency’s exchange rate “artificially.”

“If there’s high demand for foreign currency, the Belarusian rubel will be depreciating, if there’s no demand, the situation will be calm,” he told reporters in Zhlobin, Homyel region. He stressed that the rubel’s exchange rate would be determined exclusively by market forces.

Mr. Lukashenka warned the public against buying foreign cash, noting that it could lead to the rubel’s sharp weakening. “If you run from one currency exchange outlet to another from morning till night and buy foreign cash, if economic entities and banks look forward to a devaluation, to benefiting from it, and if our ‘nationally conscious’ scoundrels, who blab in all media, start stoking the people’s fears and you listen to them and run to currency exchange outlets, Godspeed, then you will weaken the national currency yourself,” the government’s news agency BelTA quoted him as saying.

“I see that our people have been rushing to currency exchange outlets in the past few months,” he said. “We already have bad experience. I stress once again that your fate is in your own hands.”

Mr. Lukashenka promised that the government would take efforts to prevent sharp changes in the rubel’s exchange rate. He also noted that the Belarusian currency could be affected by what he described as a “raging” global economic crisis.

Mr. Lukashenka reportedly said that Belarusian manufacturers’ sales were picking up after a slump this past summer. “This gives up hope. But we should not get complacent,” he was quoted as saying. //BelaPAN