Surplus of Belarus’ foreign payments at $229m in January-October

MINSK, 26 November (BelTA) – In January-October 2012 the surplus of foreign payments for exported and imported commodities and services, revenues and transfers of non-financial corporations and households of Belarus amounted to $229 million taking into account the oil export duties that have been transferred to Russia’s state budget. The information is delivered by a statistics report released by the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus, BelTA has learned.

Belarus has been importing Russian oil since 2011 without paying duties but has to transfer the export customs duties for the oil products shipped to third countries to the Russian state budget. In January-October 2012 Belarus transferred $3,190.9 million in export duties on oil products to Russia.

Without these transfers to the Russian budget the surplus of Belarus’ foreign payments that did not involve the relocation of financial assets amounted to $3,419.9 million in January-October 2012. In January-October 2011 the surplus of Belarus’ foreign payments stood at $1,152.6 million.

In January-October 2012 Belarus received $43.1 billion in foreign currency proceeds from export, revenues, and transfers, 14.6% up from the same period of last year. Payments to non-residents for imported commodities and services, for revenues and transfers went up 8.9% in January-October 2012 to $39.7 billion.