BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

12/12/2008

Belarus pledges to cut '08 budget gap ahead of IMF talks

MINSK, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Belarus, seeking a $2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, said on Friday it would slash the country's 2008 budget deficit to $156 million from $1.1 billion, according to the president's press service.

The IMF is due back in Minsk next week to continue talks about the loan. It has criticised the government's spending and also talked of adjusting the ex-Soviet state's currency policy.

The government has already slashed the state pay scale by 15 percent and a senior government official said at the end of last month that budget spending would be cut "significantly".

Belarus's budget was $1.6 billion in surplus in the first nine months of this year. Last year, the gap was much smaller than the 1.5 percent that had been originally planned.

Source:

http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&articleid=7068169&action=article

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