Government wants pensioners to keep their deposits

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenka has ordered the government to raise pensions, effective from September 2007.  This is the price that the Belarusian government is ready to pay with the budget funds for a certain stability of the country's banking system, which started shaking after the recent "gas games", notes  AFN Financial News Agency

According to AFN, rasing pensions is the only way to distract pensioners from withdrawing their deposits from the Belarusian currency accounts and from converting them into USD or EUR.

An average pension in Belarus in August 2007 will amount to $136.