I
had 24 hours in Minsk in 2007. After being in Moscow it did feel like
being in a fascist dictatorship, with posters of Lukahenko everywhere
and even then the Byelorussian ruble was worthless.
Belarus
In Full-Blown Hyperinflation Panic: Blocks News, Online Stores; Bans
All FX Trading For 2 Years.
22
December, 2014
"We
have to do something with these Belarussian rubles,"
exclaims one Belarussian as she shops to turn worthless rubles (BYR)
into physical assets. As
AFP reports, The Belarussian currency was dragged down by the
slide of the Russian ruble last week, leading authorities to impose
draconian measures, forbid price increases even for imported goods,
and warn people against panic. Now, however, in an effort to stem the
flood of hyperinflating domestic prices,
authorities have blocked online stores and news websites to stop the
run on banks and shops
as people scramble to secure their savings. One of the blocked news
websites noted, it "looks
like the authorities want to turn light panic over the fall of the
Belarussian ruble into a real one," calling
the blockages "December insanity."
Today the Belarus central bank shocked its own population when it also announced full-blown capital controls designed, releasing additional measures to stem the "negative trends of currency and financial markets " including raising mandatory sales of FX revenue to 0%, suspending all OTC FX trading (so pretty much all FX), introducing a 30% fee on all FX purchases, "recommending" that banks halt BYR lending until February, and sending 1-yr interest rates on liquidity operations with banks to a eyewatering 50% in hopes this leads to an increase in BYR deposit rates. It will. What it won't lead to is stabilization in the deposit market as the natives realize they too are next up on the hyperinflation train.
End result:
through 2017...
- BELARUS
HALTS OTC TRANSACTIONS IN FX UNTIL 2017: INTERFAX
As AFP reports,
Belarus blocked online stores and news websites Sunday, in an apparent attempt to stop a run on banks and shops as people rushed to secure their savings. In a statement Sunday, BelaPAN news company, which runs popular independent news websites Belapan.by and Naviny.by, said that the sites were blocked Saturday without any warning.
"Clearly the decision to block the IP addresses could only be taken by the authorities because in Belarus the government has monopoly on providing IPs," it said.
Other websites blocked Sunday were Charter97.by, BelarusPartisan.org, Udf.by and others with an independent news outlook. The blockage started on December 19, when the government announced that purchases of foreign currency will be taxed 30 percent and told all exporters to convert half of their foreign revenues into the local currency.
"Looks like the authorities want to turn light panic over the fall of the Belarussian ruble into a real one," Belarus Partisan website wrote, calling the blockages "December insanity." Internet shopping websites were also blocked en masse. Thirteen online stores were blocked Saturday for raising their prices or showing them in US dollars, deputy trade minister Irina Narkevich said, Interfax reported.
The government announced a moratorium on price increases for consumer goods and ordered domestic producers of appliances to "increase deliveries" and keep prices the same at the risk of their management being sacked. Belarussians lined up for hours to clear out their bank accounts and swept store shelves to secure their savings, stocking up on foreign-made appliances and housewares.
The Belarussian ruble has lost about half of its value since the beginning of the year, having been hit hard by the depreciation of the Russian ruble since its economy is heavily dependent on its giant neighbour. With foreign currency swiftly depleted in exchange offices, Belarussians even launched a black market website dollarnash.com where individuals could buy and sell dollars and euros.This follows the previously noted implementation of a 30% FX transaction tax, which however now that all OTC FX trading is banned for 2 years or longer, will hardly be collected.
$ 460 million will bring to the Belarusian budget introduction of a 30% tax on the purchase of foreign currency in Belarus. This is the TV channel "Belarus 1" said First Deputy Minister of Finance of the country Maxim Ermolovich.
"Given the daily supply and demand in the foreign exchange market budget revenues will amount to about 5 trillion Belarusian rubles, or $ 460 million at the exchange rate of the National Bank", - he said. Recall, December 19 NBB announced the introduction of December 20 temporary levy of 30% on the purchase of foreign currency for individuals and legal entities in connection with the sharply increased demand for foreign currency in the domestic market of Belarus. Legal persons will pay the tax on the stock exchange, and individuals - in the form of bank commission when buying foreign currency.As a result, expect to see more of this...
Keep in mind that the scenes shown above are what the BOJ, the ECB and the Fed would dub "success."
Is this one fascist supporting another?
Belarus
President Offers Support to Ukraine
Belarus’
authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Kyiv Sunday
to offer his support as Ukraine struggles with its pro-Russian
separatist insurgency and to try to revive stalled peace talks.
VOA,
21
December, 2014
At
a meeting, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko told Lukashenko, “I
would like to especially thank you for an absolutely clear position
on the sovereignty and territorial integrity and the independence of
our country."
“For
us, your hard-line stance, which you have always expressed, including
the stance on non-recognition of the pseudo elections on November 2
on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk - we appreciate it very much
and I'm thankful to you for this,” Poroshenko said.
Lukashenko
responded: “I want everything in Ukraine to be good,” according
to the Belarusian state news agency Belta. “If something is needed
from Belarus, say so, and we will do it all for you in a day,” he
added.
The
uprising by the separatists, who oppose central rule by Kyiv and seek
union with Russia, began a month after Russia annexed the Black Sea
peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in March.
Pro-Western
authorities in Kyiv accuse Russia of orchestrating the uprising in
the east after the ouster of former president Viktor Yanukovych, who
enjoyed Moscow's backing. The Kremlin denies it is behind the revolt.
Minsk
negotiations
Belarus,
which is a close ally of Russia, also maintains a solid relationship
with Ukraine. Belarus also hosted major negotiations between an
international contact group in its capital, Minsk, in September that
produced deals on a cease-fire and partial self-rule for the two
mostly Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine that rebelled
against Kyiv in April.
According
to Kyiv officials Sunday's meeting between the two was unrelated to
the contact group of envoys from Russia, Ukraine and the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The
cease-fire agreed to in September succeeded in stemming the worst
fighting, but it has been repeatedly flouted by both sides, resulting
in at least 1,300 more deaths. The United Nations said the death toll
from Europe's worst security crisis since the Balkan wars of the
1990s is more than 4,700.
Lukashenko's
first visit to Kyiv since Ukraine’s historic shift westward last
winter comes as European Union efforts to get the peace talks back on
track are in full swing.
Overnight,
Poroshenko held his third conversation with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel since last weekend about the continued delay of the talks, the
French news agency AFP reported.
Poroshenko
and Merkel agreed that the new talks should "produce a
demarcation line and establish a roadmap for withdrawing troops and
releasing hostages," the Ukrainian president's office told AFP
on Sunday.
No
date has been set for new Minsk talks, but Ukraine officials expected
the meeting to happen "soon," AFP reported.
Kazakhstan's
autocratic President Nursultan Nazarbayev is to meet with Poroshenko
on Monday in Kyiv, before heading to Moscow where he and Lukashenko
are to attend a trade bloc meeting along with Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
From TASS -
We face the perfect storm. The biosphere unraveling at the same time as the the collapse of capitalism whilst the US stalks China in the Pacific Pivot and Russia via Ukraine. It can only end badly.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, reading the tea leaves, I would expect this perfect storm to arrive sometime early in 2015
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