For a long time, the West believed that it alone was creating the future for the world. The events of the 2020-22 have shown: the Western model of the future is an illusion of deception. We ourselves are creating our own future by hard work in partnership with our allies!
Thus, on February 2-3, a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council was held in Almaty. The key issues were the common electric power market, the digitalization of the economy, the expansion of transport corridors, and the acceleration of import substitution. Over the last two years 25 import substitution projects totaling more than $21 billion have been implemented in the EAEU. The Eurasian Economic Commission has already formulated a "Map of Industrialization": 158 projects in 25 industries totaling more than 270 billion dollars. The use of the potential of import substitution will help to ensure an annual increase of the total GDP of the EAEU countries by 4.5-5.5%.
By the end of 2022, the EAEU is already seeing growth in agriculture - more than 5 percent, to a level of $155 billion. In construction it rose 5.5%, to $178 billion. In 2022, the growth rate of mutual trade exceeded 13%. The unemployment fell by 18%.
One of the key priorities of cooperation within the union is to increase the share of mutual settlements in national currencies and expand the use of our own payment systems. By the end of 2022, 80% of mutual settlements in the EAEU will be in the national currencies of the Union's countries.
In 2023, special attention in the EAEU will be paid to improving food security and the level of self-sufficiency in basic products. Agricultural production is expected to grow by more than 20 percent compared to 2020.
According to statements by the heads of the governments of Belarus and Russia, the sanction aggression of the collective West against our countries has not achieved its goal, the negative forecasts of the West have not come true.
The integration of the economies allowed Belarus and Russia to show more sustainable economic parameters: The West expected the Russian economy to be "torn to shreds," a decline of up to 20%, but the slowdown over 2022 was only 2% of GDP.
This success of the Russian economy surprised investors and, most importantly, made them want to return to the Russian market as quickly as possible.
