MINSK, 21 June (BelTA) – Belarusian Economy Minister Aleksandr Chervyakov met with Russian Economic Development Minister Maksim Reshetnikov after a session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council. The sides discussed in detail progress in the realization of Union State programs, directions for stepping up mutual trade, and other matters, the Economy Ministry press service told BelTA.
According to Aleksandr Chervyakov, rising bilateral shipments of materials, components, and ready-made products for the sake of substituting lost imports from unfriendly countries will help keep the Belarusian economy and the Russian one stable in the current conditions.
Aleksandr Chervyakov said: “Today we see our economies are slowing down. The slowdown is primarily due to structural transformations: the reorientation of export shipments to markets of friendly countries, transition to new components, the remodeling of logistic corridors, and changes of the structure of currency payments. All of it requires time. At the same time many companies are increasing their output after doing this work in advance. It is particularly true for machine-building and instrument-making industries, electronics, food industry, and other ones. These products are in high demand on the Russian market. No doubt it is now necessary to step up these efforts in order to occupy vacant niches and increase export. An ambitious task the government is working on is to increase shipments to Russia by more than 30% in comparison with 2021.”
Discussion about progress in implementing a Union State program on macropolitics was another important item on the agenda. The economic agencies of the two countries are coordinators of the program.
Aleksandr Chervyakov and Maksim Reshetnikov paid close attention to the invigoration of information interaction in a number of avenues: current economic affairs on a regular basis, the formation of projections of Belarus' and Russia's social and economic development, an algorithm of development of the development forecast for the Union State of Belarus and Russia. These three vectors will be reflected in a draft of the corresponding intergovernmental agreement, which is supposed to be signed by December.
In the course of discussing approaches to working out the Union State development forecast, Aleksandr Chervyakov and Maksim Reshetnikov paid attention to the development and approval of lists of commodities for joint trade balance sheets.
In turn, Maksim Reshetnikov mentioned it is necessary to work out the second integration package. For now the sides should put together a roadmap aimed at bringing the Belarusian economy and the Russian one closer to each other.
The ministers agreed to organize a joint collegium at the end of the year. By then the countries will have developed official social and economic development forecasts. The development of measures to realize the forecasts will be discussed at the session.
