• Belarus joined the IMF on July 10, 1992. It accepted obligations under Article XIV.
• The IMF office in Belarus was opened in October 1992.
• For Belarus's Governor, quota, and voting power in the IMF, see http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.htm
• Belarus accepted the obligations of sections 2,3, and 4 under Article VIII of the IMF Articles of Agreement on November 5, 2001.
• The Belarusian currency is the Belarusian ruble; its external value is determined by the crawling band

Main areas of IMF activities in Belarus

There are three main areas of IMF activities in Belarus: The most important area of activity has been cooperation with the government and the National Bank of Belarus preparing economic policy programs with a focus on macroeconomic issues: fiscal, monetary, exchange rate and trade policies to ensure sustained strong economic growth, low inflation, and a sustainable balance of payments.

Financial Assistance

Since 1993, Belarus has used IMF resources on three occasions (detailed below) in support of the Government's economic reform programs.

Total Fund credit and loans outstanding at end-November 2002 amounted to SDR 40.9 million.

Type of Arrangement	Approval Date	Amount Aprd. (SDR Million)	Amount Drn. (SDR Million)
Systemic Transformation Facility (STF)	07/28/93	70.10	70.10
Stand-by	09/12/95	196.28	50.00
Systemic Transformation Facility	01/30/95	70.10	70.10

For updated information, see table on Belarus's financial position in the Fund.

Technical Assistance

The IMF has provided Belarus with technical assistance in a number of areas, including public expenditure policy, treasury, tax and customs, bank supervision, monetary policy/central bank organization and in statistics (balance of payments, money and banking, real sector). This assistance has been provided in various forms: visiting teams from Washington or individual experts arriving for shorter periods or resident experts staying for up to four years.

The IMF Institute has been providing training to Belarusian officials in the areas of financial programming and policy, external sector policies, balance of payments, government finance statistics and other areas. The Joint Vienna Institute has been providing training to officials in macroeconomic policy analysis, public expenditure, central bank accounting and fiscal policy management.