Over 10 issues were considered today at a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Union State in Moscow. The meeting of the Prime Ministers took place in the Government House. As Andrei Kobyakov noted, today the bilateral trade and economic relations are on the rise. Last year, the trade turnover increased by 20% and amounted to over $30 billion.
Andrei Kobyakov, the Prime Minister of Belarus: "As a strategic objective, I propose to consolidate the output to the previously existing level of the trade turnover in the volume of over $40 billion. The tools for solving each task should be the building of a common market, the creation of equal economic conditions, the preservation of the potential of the machine-building complex, cooperation in the sphere of the agro-industrial complex, the removal of barriers and restrictions, and, finally, the creation of a union product and its joint promotion to the markets of third countries. Our common task is to find a mutually beneficial compromise to ensure equal and fair competition."
Dmitry Medvedev, the Prime Minister of Russia: "The investment cooperation is expanding, and the large projects that we are implementing are confirming that we are ready for such cooperation. We are talking about the construction of a Belarusian nuclear power plant, the construction of a carbon black plant, dry mixes, and soybean processing. Our ties have significant regional coverage, almost every Russian region, more precisely 80 regions out of 85 are developing direct trade relations with Belarus, which gives us additional opportunities and we need to use it, we need to continue moving towards removing barriers to accessing goods and services, creating equal rules for doing business."
At the meeting, the Prime Ministers of Belarus and Russia discussed the topic of creating a common scientific and technical space that will ensure not only economic, but also political security of the two countries. Also, they discussed the development of the digital economy and IT-technologies.
