Belarusians buy less, sell more hard currency in Jan 2008

It has been the first time recently that Belarusians were buying less hard currency than selling it to the banks. According to the preliminary data, banks have reported a positive balance of $20.5 million over the past 23 days of January.  The Belarus's Central Bank said physical entities bought $265.5 million from the forex outlets and sold $283 million to banks.

Some experts link the trend with the Christmas season when Belarusians spent more than usually. Others believe that the population prefers the Belarus rubel for bank deposits after the dollar hit low at the world markets.

In 2007, Belarusians bought $5,319 million from banks and exchanged $4,901 million, writes Zvyazda newspaper.