MINSK, 19 March (BelTA) – The CIS countries need to improve the existing transport corridors and create new ones, CIS First Deputy Secretary General Leonid Anfimov told the media, BelTA has learned.
He was asked why cooperation in the transport sector is so relevant and important for the CIS countries today. "Probably, the answer to this question was given by the Belarusian head of state. During a meeting with the Russian leader Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, the presidents discussed the need to improve transport links between this region and the access through Leningrad Oblast to the northern seas, the Baltic Sea,” Leonid Anfimov noted. “The existing transport corridor has largely lost the infrastructure which was once developed in the Soviet Union. Today, with the increase in cargo flows, when the Baltic countries have closed their borders to us, these flows must be redirected to other routes. Meanwhile these routes can no longer cope with this cargo traffic. Therefore, we need to create the new ones and improve what was once built in the Soviet Union. We must focus on upgrading the infrastructure in some places and creating new one in others."
Minsk is playing host to a joint meeting of the CIS Council of Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives and the Commission on Economic Issues under the CIS Economic Council. The participants of the meeting intend to discuss seven items, including the draft agenda of the next meeting of the CIS Heads of Government Council, the preparations for the meeting of the CIS Foreign Ministers Council, the status of the roadmap to the economic cooperation initiatives expressed by the heads of delegations during previous meetings of the CIS Heads of State Council, the CIS Heads of Government Council, the CIS Foreign Ministers Council and the Economic Council. The joint meeting is set to take stock of the activities of the CIS sectoral cooperation bodies in 2023, the Council of Heads of Statistical Services in 2020-2023, to examine the action plan for 2023-2025 to the memorandum on deepening cooperation between the CIS Executive Committee and the Eurasian Economic Commission, the development of commodity markets for medicines of the CIS member states.
