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Lukashenko announces plan to stabilize Belarus currency market

The president also said that all exchange offices at banks, after the opening of the extra session, will be able to sell currency at the market rate

MINSK, August 30 (Itar-Tass) — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko demands that the National Bank should daily follow the situation on the currency market, intervening in it at times to repulse speculative attacks. He stated this on Tuesday at a conference where he announced the plan to stabilize the country’s currency market.

Lukashenko demanded that the state control committee and law enforcement bodies should place a barrier to speculators who artificially whip up the situation on the currency market. He stressed that in the framework of the plan to stabilize the currency market “all who wish to buy national currency, which people in Minsk crave, will have this opportunity.”

The president also said that all exchange offices at banks, after the opening of the extra session, will be able to sell currency at the market rate.

The Belarusian president said that implementing the plan to establish the uniform rate of the Belarusian rouble, the government hopes that this will not take much time.

Lukashenko also said that if citizens wish to convert their deposits into currency, they must be given this opportunity. At the same time he stressed he does not advise to convert national currency into other currencies. He said the state will support the Belarusian rouble, increasing the profitableness of deposits in national currency. He also instructed the National Bank to create such economic conditions that people should go to banks to make currency deposits.

He said he is ready to consider one-time amnesty of funds. Lukashenko also demanded that there should be no printing money in the country.

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