On February 25, Minsk /BELTA correspondent/. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko demands stricter currency regulation rules in the country. He stated this today at a meeting with the new government and newly appointed officials, as reported by a BELTA correspondent. "I want to draw the principal attention of the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Board of the National Bank: we are impermissibly lax in our approach to the use of foreign currency earnings. A situation has arisen where several hundred or tens, perhaps, of key enterprises bring currency into the country, and the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Board of the National Bank, based on incomprehensible free market theories, distribute this currency to whomever they please," the President said. He noted that if there is currency in the country, it can be taken and spent. "If there is no currency, ask those who have it. And stop taking currency away from the heads of enterprises and organizations that earn it and giving it to those who do not bring it into the country," Alexander Lukashenko addressed the Chairman of the Board of the National Bank. "This is a fundamental issue for our economy, and we must adjust our policy, not rely on some bare market theory," the head of state said. "I am not saying that everyone should be restricted. The population is sacred. And we do not have problems with currency for the population. The population bought several million dollars and still placed them in banks. But enterprises behave laxly. This includes the energy sector and others. Therefore, order must be established here," the President emphasized. "I am confident that this will yield a normal effect, and we will no longer have problems with currency, exchange rates, and so on," he added. -0-

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