An official delegation of Belarus is in Washington for the annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Belarus Andrei Savinykh told reporters.

The delegation is headed by Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov. The Board of Governors is set to approve the financial and audit reports on the activities of the IMF and World Bank in the past fiscal year, approve the budgets for next year, elect Executive Directors, and discuss several other important issues related to the program activities of these organizations.

In addition, Belarus’ representatives will meet with the IMF top officials to exchange views on the prospects regarding Belarus’ economic development and further cooperation considering the successful completion of the Stand-By Arrangement. During these consultations the parties plan to coordinate the areas and amount of technical and advisory assistance provided by the IMF fund for technical and expert assistance to Belarus and will discuss cooperation prospects.

The Belarusian delegation and WB officials plan to discuss the implementation of current investment projects under the World Bank Strategy for Belarus for 2008-2011. An emphasis will be placed on promising areas of credit cooperation, which may be included into a new strategy for the period after 2011, and on the technical and advisory assistance to Belarus by WB structural departments.

The Belarusian delegation plans to hold consultations with the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) to discuss a basic agreement to allow MIGA to provide guarantees to foreign investors seeking to invest in projects in Belarus.

(BelTA)