MINSK, 13 July (BelTA) – The volume of Armenian investments poured into the Belarusian economy in Q1 2020 rose by nearly 2.5 times. Belarusian Forestry Minister Vitaly Drozhzha mentioned it during an online meeting of co-chairpersons of the Belarus-Armenia intergovernmental trade and economic cooperation commission, BelTA has learned.
According to Vitaly Drozhzha, Belarusian-Armenian relations develop steadily in a diversified manner while emerging issues are effectively handled by the intergovernmental commission. The official stressed that there are no political and economic problems between Minsk and Yerevan at present. “In January-March the volume of Armenian investments poured into the Belarusian economy rose by virtually 2.5 times to $8.3 million. Mutual trade in services keeps rising steadily: it went up by 44.6% in January-April to $3.8 million,” the forestry minister said.
The official noted that this year Belarus-Armenia trade has been affected by consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the volume of trade dropped by only 5%, which is a good indicator in such a situation. In January-May Belarus-Armenia trade amounted to $25.4 million. It is necessary to as soon as possible work out mechanisms to raise the figure, he stressed.
Armenian Economy Minister Tigran Khachatryan thanked the Belarusian side for effective interaction. He remarked that the two countries have a considerable untapped cooperation potential. Nine bilateral documents are in the pipeline, he said. “Once they are signed and are implemented step by step, we will be able to talk about positive dynamics in various avenues of cooperation,” he noted.
Joint projects in the sphere of production sector and manufacturing cooperation, investment, small and medium business, agriculture, transport and infrastructure, high technologies, innovations, digitization, and environmental protection can become successful avenues of cooperation. Belarus and Armenia have already established effective cooperation in education and healthcare, science and technology.
Tigran Khachatryan added: “We are grateful to your country for planting a forest of Belarusian-Armenian friendship. We hope that once the pandemic is over, we will be able to embellish Armenia with even more trees grown out of Belarusian saplings.”
