Belarus is going to borrow another $600 million from Russia

Belarus has asked Russian authorities to refinance its national debt in 2021, a source close to the talks told Interfax-West. According to it, the amount Minsk has to pay to Moscow in 2021 is $600 million. Belarus asks Russia for money to cover this amount within fifteen years.

The issue will be discussed this week by the heads of states. The source notes that according to the level of negotiations, Belarus has every chance to receive a bigger amount of state money from Russia. This point is the most successful for discussing, since the Russian authorities are currently planning a budget for 2021. If Minsk manages to receive funds by January-February, then in the first half of the year it will definitely not have difficulties with payments on obligations.

On August 27, Alexander Lukashenko announced that he had agreed with Russia on discussing the refinancing of the Belarusian state debt for $1 billion this year. On August 31, Vladimir Putin’s advisor Dmitry Peskov said that negotiations on this loan have not yet been completed.

As of August 1, the external debt of Belarus reached $17.8 billion. From January to July this year, it increased by $600 million, or 3.7%. Next year, the country will have to repay $2.8 billion according to liabilities. Russia is the largest creditor to Belarus. By the end of March of this year, Minsk borrowed a total of $8 billion from Moscow, in 2011, the debt to Russia was $3 billion. From 2001 to 2018, Moscow invested $11.9 billion in Minsk, most of these funds were spent on Gazprom’s purchase of the pipeline organization “Beltransgaz”.