Belarus, Russia working on joint programs

MINSK, 15 May (BelTA) – Belarus' Ambassador to Russia Dmitry Krutoi said in an interview to the Belarus 1 TV Channel what joint programs Belarus and Russia were working on, BelTA has learned.

“As for the aircraft building, we need to load the capacities we have and try to implement medium-term programs until 2025-2030 and cover all the needs. The second important area is a new segment where we could start assembling the final product. We discussed civilian aircraft construction, perhaps small aircraft for new civil aviation, which could be partially localized in Belarus. This topic will be worked out and the results will be presented at the Innoprom exhibition in Yekaterinburg,” Dmitry Krutoi said.

According to him, it is also important to discuss the machine tool industry at the Innoprom exhibition. “We had a joint Union State project until 2019, and an enterprise was set up. There was no emergency at that time, as it was possible to buy a machine tool in any country. That is why the project did not work and, in fact, was closed. Today the situation is different. The machine tool building program we have been talking about for the last six months will also be presented at Innoprom. Applications from different Russian industries are many, and we need to understand the format of participation, financing and deadlines,” the ambassador said.

“At the meeting with [Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Industry and Trade] Denis Manturov we discussed the protection of our Union State market, because there still were parallel imports and dumping by third countries. The machine-building segment is critically important to us, and we want to maintain the share of our enterprises in the supplies to Russia. The supply of passenger vehicles is also important: Russia is implementing a number of large federal programs to upgrade the electric transport fleet, as well as classic buses, and our manufacturers can offer their models. We agreed that in the near future the Russian government will send us a list of certain commodity items for which there are certain restrictions on supplies. The Russian side expressed its readiness to lift these restrictions in the near future,” Dmitry Krutoi said.