Alexander Lukashenko puts forward Belarus’ initiatives at Belt and Road forum in Beijing

15 мая 2017

President Alexander Lukashenko has announced Belarus’ initiatives today at the main economic forum of the last five years - the Belt and Road forum in Beijing.

The first high-level plenary session was dedicated to the synergy of micro- and macroprojects. The Belarusian leader called for using a unique historical opportunity for a transition to mutually beneficial cooperation, stressing that the world is currently undergoing a stage of active development and global changes. The changes are connected with continuous challenges and threats, including terrorism, migration crisis and new security threats. Often, contradictions are resolved using weapons. That is why it is so important to use the historical opportunity to change the model of interaction between countries.

The Belarusian President is a special guest at the forum as Belarus is the first country in Europe and one of the first in the world to support and begin the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt. The Great Stone industrial park that is currently being built together with China is not only infrastructure and business worth tens of billions of dollars, but also a new legal framework for relations, which is in many ways exemplary for the whole world. The industrial hub is the largest in Central and Eastern Europe.

Among Belarus’ new initiatives are synergy in the scientific sphere and information security.

Alexander Lukashenko has held a number of bilateral meetings as part of the forum, including with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The official Ankara is Belarus’ long-time strategic partner and a large investor in tens of joint projects. Alexander Lukashenko plans to hold negotiations on strategic cooperation today with heads of major Chinese corporations.