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Chairman of the National Bank of Belarus Raman Halouchanka said in an interview with Bankovski Vestnik that the country’s foreign exchange reserves are already being used to finance investment projects.
It should be recalled that as of March 1, Belarus’s reserves reached 16.4 billion US dollars, setting another record.
“In global practice, a safe level of foreign exchange reserves is considered to be an amount covering three months of imports of goods and services. In Belarus, this indicator currently stands at 3.7 months of imports. This allows us to say that the country’s reserves are at a level sufficient to ensure macroeconomic stability. With such a volume of reserves, part of them can be used to finance the most important, strategically significant investment projects. And this is already being done,” he said.
According to him, such financing is selective in nature. At the same time, Halouchanka did not name the projects receiving funds or disclose the mechanisms for financing them from the reserves.
“Of course, such financing is exceptional and targeted in nature, since the main functions of foreign exchange reserves are to maintain confidence in monetary policy and the national currency, ensure the economy’s resilience to external shocks, and fulfill external obligations,” he added.
It should be recalled that last year Alyaksandr Lukashenka repeatedly said that reserves should not remain idle and spoke in favor of directing them toward financing various projects.
The head of the National Bank acknowledged that the high level of reserves is largely driven by rising prices for monetary gold. These may decline, although current forecasts do not suggest a sharp drop in prices for the precious metal.
“A significant portion of reserves is represented by monetary gold. Due to rising gold prices, the volume of reserves has increased by 5.5 billion US dollars since the beginning of 2024. However, gold prices may decline, and this is taken into account in forecasts and plans for the use of reserves. At the same time, current forecasts do not anticipate a decline in gold prices, meaning that a significant reduction in reserves is not expected,” Halouchanka said.