Belarus may use ‘grey’ schemes to repay international public debt in 2015

Belarus anticipates refinancing almost one third of its international public debt to mature in 2015, announced Deputy Finance Minister Ermolovich on June 26^th while talking about the prospects of repaying international and domestic debt in the coming year.

In particular, he noted that from the total USD 3 billion due for repayment, USD 2 billion will be repaid from the state budget and circa USD 1 billion will be refinanced from various sources. This implies that Belarus will receive USD 1.5 billion in additional revenues from the export duties on oil products and USD 500 million from elsewhere. Meanwhile, the draft budget for 2015 does not yet list the said amount in the budget revenues. Allegedly, Belarus expects to receive half a billion USD from the new ‘innovative schemes’, which have replaced the ‘lubricants and solvents schemes’ in 2014. If so, then Belarus’ main risk factor in receiving additional revenues would be Russia’s tax manoeuvres in the oil industry, which, depending on the chosen scheme, could substantially refine the size of benefits offered to Belarus.