MINSK, 22 July (BelTA) – Chairman of the Minsk Oblast Executive Committee Aleksandr Turchin and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia to Belarus Yevgeny Lukyanov met in Minsk on 22 July to discuss a unique business project in the sphere of agriculture, BelTA has learned.
The meeting lasted for over two hours. The sides discussed matters concerning bilateral cooperation in the implementation of current projects and new ones. The Minsk Oblast governor said: “We've been recently having a lot of meetings with representatives of Russia. We constantly advance cooperation with this country. Today's talk will only accelerate work on many projects, particularly interregional cooperation ones. In particular, we are now contemplating ways to implement a unique business project with Russian partners in the sphere of agriculture. It will explore unconventional avenues for Belarus.”
The ambassador said he had been actively getting to know Belarus. “It's been three months in the ambassador's office. I organize a lot of meetings in the country, get to know people better. Today I've met with the Minsk Oblast governor. We've discussed bilateral cooperation, talked about economy and manufacturing enterprises. We sketched out ways of cooperation but in order to explore them we need to collect more data, summarize information, and understand how profitable and promising the outlined vectors are,” Yevgeny Lukyanov said.
The ambassador also remarked that Belarus-Russia relations are built on mutual respect and mutual interest. Negotiations will continue.
In January-May 2021 the trade of Minsk Oblast enterprises with Russia totaled $2,240.1 million (the growth rate was 130.9%). Export amounted to $1,432.3 million (135.2%), with import at $807.8 million (124.0%). Foreign trade surplus reached $624.5 million.
In January-March 2021 foreign direct investments from Russia totaled $94.5 million, 113.1% as against January-March 2020.
An investment project is being implemented in Zhodino using investments of the Russian company Volma Corporation. The project provides for designing and building a plant to make cement-perlitic panels. Accompanying engineering and transport infrastructure facilities will be built as well. The work is supposed to be finished in 2026.
Apart from that, Russian capital is used to build a pharmaceutical plant and an enterprise to make test strips and remote health monitoring systems in the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone. It is a project of the Belarusian company Delfidia.
