Photo courtesy of the Economy Ministry
MINSK, 27 June (BelTA) – Belarus has always been in favor of establishing economic relations with Russia in a bid to complement the other economy instead of competing with it. Coordinated actions meant to ensure technological security will contribute to the outstripping development of the two economies. Belarusian Economy Minister Yuri Chebotar made the statement in a report during the panel session on ensuring the technological independence of Belarus and Russia on the basis of innovations in the manufacturing sector during the 11th Forum of Regions of Belarus and Russia, the press service of the Economy Ministry told BelTA.
The economy minister pointed out the serious intellectual potential of the two countries. Belarus is in the top ten countries in terms of training specialists in the field of science and technology, export of IT services, creation of mobile applications, and the number of ISO 9001 quality certificates.
In turn, Russia is traditionally strong in such areas as the scale of the domestic market, the registration of patent applications for utility models and inventions, revenues from intellectual property, and employment in science-intensive fields.
According to the minister, these advantages should be used as efficiently as possible to ensure technological security.
“We believe it is necessary to launch this work at two levels. The first one is the satisfaction of needs of the economies for manufacturing facilities and technologies here and now. Three R&D programs of the Union State of Belarus and Russia are aimed at it now. They focus on the manufacturing sector, photonics, and outer space. Apart from that, 34 integration projects and ideas have been prepared, including 25 ones that have already been approved at the level of the central government, one at the level of the industry ministries. They have the relevant funding,” Yuri Chebotar noted. “Over the past year we’ve advanced far in interaction with the state corporation Rosatom in areas relating to non-energy projects. We invite other Russian companies to participate in the realization of joint business ideas in Belarus.”
The second level, according to the economy minister, is determined by the long-term strategy of development of technologies taking into account world trends and the competences Belarus and Russia have.
“Belarus has always been in favor of building economic relations with Russia so that the economies could complement each other instead of competing. It is in this manner that we suggest establishing interaction in strategic science-intensive economy branches. Ensuring the synchronization of this work is an important task,” Yuri Chebotar believes. “It could result in, for instance, the joint production of machine tools and engines, unmanned systems and their components, in the creation of a Union State composite factory, and in the realization of other promising initiatives. The spectrum of avenues is rather broad.”
