MINSK, 6 October (BelTA) - Belarus needs and values relations with Georgia, Belarusian Vice Prime Minister Aleksandr Subbotin said as he met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia to Belarus Valeri Kvaratskhelia, BelTA has learned.
"Relations with Georgia are very needed and important. We should be friends. Trade has been growing in these difficult days of the pandemic and political turbulence. Exports from Georgia and Belarus have been on the rise. We have several projects – Dairy plant, Mogilevliftmash. This is an indication that we need to go forward, together, and that the interest is mutual," Aleksandr Subbotin said.
For his part, the ambassador noted that contacts between the business communities of the two countries have recently intensified. "There are many interesting topics that I would like to discuss with you. During the pandemic, there were no international communication, no arrivals. Today air communication has been restored. You can come here from any corner of Georgia now - three or four flights a week. This has never happened in the history of our relationship. You can fly here even from Kutaisi now. Georgian airlines operate flights to Minsk too,” he stressed. “This year the flow of Belarusian tourists has doubled. Belarus is among the eight top inbound tourism markets for Georgia. Despite the pandemic, tourists come to relax. This year there were a lot of tourists with children from Belarus."
In January-August 2021, the trade between Belarus and Georgia amounted to $55.4 million and increased by 4.9% over 2020. Exports totaled $32.8 million (down by 2%), imports came at $22.7 million (an increase of 17.2%). Belarus had a $10.1 million surplus in trade with Georgia.
This year, Belarus' major export items to Georgia are industrial products (electrical transformers, insulated wires, cables, lifts, lighting equipment), agricultural products (condensed and dry milk and cream, malt, whey, starch), food (sugar, pasta, finished or canned meat products, sausages, milk and cream, curd, flour-based food, butter, fish, confectionery), ethyl alcohol, spirits, malt, wood products (fiberboard, plywood, furniture, chipboard, lumber), medicines for retail sale, hair products, computers for automatic information processing, construction plastic parts.
Belarus imports Georgian mineral waters, spirits, natural grape wines, waste and scrap copper, nuts, fruits, manganese oxides, clays.
In January-July 2021 bilateral trade in services amounted to $19.4 million (up 56.1% compared to 2020). The export of services totaled $12.6 million (up 31.1%), import - $6.8 million (up 2.4 times). Belarus posted a trade surplus of $5.7 million.
The export of services comprised transport services - $9 million (71.4% of the total, up 31.5%), including air transport services - $5.8 million, motor transport services - $3.26 million, other business services - $1.5 million (up 27.4%), computer and telecommunication services - $1.2 million (up 37.5%), healthcare services - $0.4 million (up 22.1%).
There are 25 enterprises with Georgian capital in Belarus. Among them are 13 joint ventures and 12 foreign organizations.
As of July 2021 Georgia was home to a commodity distribution network entity with Belarusian state capital (BNK Tbilisi, Belarus' share in the authorized capital is 51%), an enterprise with Belarusian private capital to process Belarusian milk powder - Tbilisi Dairy Plant, 40 commodity distribution network entities without Belarusian capital, including two factories to assemble Mogilevliftmash elevators at GTU-SIS and BZTDIA tractors at Hermes (production is non-operational), and a pharmaceuticals packaging plant (Aversi-Rational).
In Tbilisi there is a large furniture shop that sells Pinskdrev products, two retail stores of Bellegprom enterprises (Milavitsa and Blakit), and 15 stores selling Belarusian food products.
