Experts: Debt Investors Are Thinking About Withdrawing Money From Belarus

The country may completely lose access to the external capital market.

Belarus may lose access to the external capital market and face an outflow of foreign capital from the country, according to the materials prepared by experts of the Republican Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), BelaPAN reports.

"Non-recognition of the election results by several Western countries actually makes it impossible to refinance foreign debt by placing securities on Western financial markets. Debt investors today are thinking about withdrawing their funds rather than providing new loans," RSPP experts note.

They emphasize that only the risks of early withdrawal of funds attracted by the Development Bank in international financial markets are estimated at more than $ 950 million.

"The refusal of the IMF to provide (Belarus) a credit line for 940 million US dollars is one of the negative signals for the debt market, and new negotiations with international financial institutions in the current political situation are unlikely to be productive," experts say.

They also believe that due to the non-recognition of the election results by Western countries, "discrimination in the access of Belarusian goods to the markets of these countries may increase, not only through the potential imposition of sanctions, but also due to the refusal of counterparties to cooperate with Belarusian companies, including due to political risks."

It will not be possible to solve the problems arising in the economy amid the current crisis at the expense of the budget, experts say. "The state of the budget in the conditions of the crisis will not allow maintaining not only the current level of investment at the expense of state resources but also the financing of social expenditures in the same parameters," the RSPP experts believe.

In their opinion, in order to solve the economic problems that arose after the elections, it is necessary to "urgently form an intra-Belarusian dialogue platform" with the participation of representatives of the state and all layers of civil society.