MINSK, Belarus, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Belarus has deposited $2.5 billion received from Russian gas company Gazprom for the purchase of the state gas company Beltransgaz, a bank said.
Gazprom announced this week that it took control of Beltransgaz as part of a revised energy deal with Belarus.
"According to preliminary data, Belarus' gold and foreign exchange reserves increased by $2.74 billion in November," the country's national bank was quoted by Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti as saying.
"The increase was facilitated by the receipt of $2.5 billion from the sale of Beltransgaz shares and also by the conversion of non-reserve assets into reserve assets."
Inflation in Belarus is in the double digits and the country's president in June threatened to close the borders if there was a fiscal emergency. Minsk blamed rising prices of natural gas from Russia for some of its economic woes.
Gazprom under the terms of the deal would charge $164 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas starting in 2012. That's down from the $280 per 1,000 cubic meters paid this year and is less than half of what European consumers pay the natural gas company.
