MINSK, 21 February (BelTA) – Belarus and China are negotiating the joint production of electric cars, BelTA learned from Belarusian Industry Minister Pavel Utyupin at a session of the ministry's board.
The official said: “We are conducting negotiations with Chinese partners on electric vehicles. The negotiations are not finished yet. The car assembly plant BelGee can do welding, assembly, paint work. All of it allows us to realize the automobile engineering potential in the future.”
Ways for Belarusian Industry Ministry enterprises to penetrate the African market will be considered in 2019. The industry minister specified that joint production may be established if economically advisable, yet it is possible it will be more profitable to ship ready vehicles and machines to some countries. For instance, plans have been made to start making MTZ tractors in Sudan by the end of the year.
In 2018 export by enterprises accountable to the Belarusian Industry Ministry exceeded $4.6 billion, with the growth rate at 111% as against 2017. The foreign trade surplus was as large as $2 billion. Non-CIS export grew by 22.8% from 2017. Export to the European Union went up by 34.3% to $948 million.
According to Pavel Utyupin, on the whole in 2018 exports were shipped to 117 countries across the globe, including 19 countries, which did not buy products from Industry Ministry enterprises in 2017.
