Updated at 13:52,22-04-2024

Experts: Belarus refused to pledge Belaruskali because it found money elsewhere?

news portal UDF.BY

The Belarusian authorities could find a new serious investor, the experts said, estimating the refusal of Belarus to bargain Belaruskali. In particular, they name the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, who thinks what to do with $ 40 billion.

On August 5 it became known that Sberbank and Deutsche Bank will give a credit to Belaruskali at $ 2 billion. The head of Sberbank German Gref told to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, that a collateral for the loan will be provided by the export contracts and 35% of the enterprise shares in pledge.

But today, General Director of JSC Belaruskali Valeri Kiriyenko said, that Belarusian authorities will refuse the credit on offered conditions.

The head of the Analytical Center Strategy Leonid Zaiko in an interview to the news portal UDF.BY gave three possible options for why this has happened:

- The first: they reached an agreement with some other party on currency, which is so needed today in Belarus. It may be, for example, colonel Chavez, who now takes away the $ 40 billion out of U.S. banks and he will place them somewhere, so one should not reject the Venezuelan version.

The second: 35% Belaruskali's assets for $ 2 billion is very cheap, so this deal aroused great suspicion before its conclusion. It looks like a kind of pulling into the net of the Russian financial spider, and Lukashenko felt that it was not worth doing, and one should refuse.

The third: The allocated 2 billion, in fact, will not save the situation, and therefore it is better to work on a grand scale.


In turn, the well-known Belarusian economist Leonid Zlotnikov told the news portal UDF.BY, that through this transaction one could solve tactical problems, but lose strategically:

- Firstly, we give the 35 percent of shares for a just $ 2 billion, which means that the whole Belaruskali doesn't cost so much. Of course, it's not worth 30 billion, as the President said, but its price should be in the range of 15-20 billion.

Secondly, by closing a deal we pay into the hands of Russians and Germans more than a blocking stake, so, without their permission, our government will not be able to sell more shares, for example, to Hindus.


And Hindus by the way, willing to pay much more money for a much smaller stake.

- That is why for us is much more profitable to sell a minority stake to India and continue to control the situation ourselves. Belarus would lose, not only economically, if completed the deal with Sberbank and Deutsche Bank. Those Indians, Chinese would have asked why they did not sell to us for more serious money, and gave it to the two banks, - assumes L. Zlotnikov.