National bank tries to make Belarusians to hand over foreign exchange

• 26.05.2009, 9:18

Last Friday an interesting fact became clear: buying and selling exchange rates of dollar in banks have become almost the same.

In Monday, May 25, the difference between the buying and selling rates was little. In Absolutbank it was just 1 ruble. The citizens of Belarus never saw that before: they usually had to at least 100 rubles when buying a dollar as compared to the selling rate on the same day, “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus” notes.

“It is very convenient: you can secure yourself. You can buy dollars, wait a little and sell them in a situation… And you lose nothing in that,” noted an economist of the Research Centre of Entrepreneurship and management Institute Alyaksandr Chubrik. “And now, like before the New Year, the buying rate for foreign currency has become higher than in the National bank”.

And indeed, dollar exchange rate in the National bank on Monday was 2,749 Br, and buying rate in the BPS-bank – 2,790 Br, 2,789 Br in Priorbank. The difference between the buying and selling rates in the banks was from 1 to 14 rubles. And what is going on with the exchange rates?

“Banks are interested in buying foreign exchange cash,” Anatol Drazdou, head of the information department of the National bank of Belarus explained. “The National bank has set limits for margin at 2 %, and banks cannot raise the e4xchange rate higher than 2,804 Br per dollar. But banks want to buy dollars, so they offer people to sell the dollars they have at a more profitable rate of exchange”.

- But people understand that the other way around – as an incentive to buy currency.

- Nobody can make people sell currency. This market instrument is aimed at stimulation of selling.