MINSK, 18 July (BelTA) – Belarus and Russia have agreed on 14 joint projects as part of the import substitution effort, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk told the Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA has learned.
“Work on import substitution is underway. We want Belarus to make the most of its potential in this process, so we have agreed on 14 investment projects. In line with these projects, Belarus will launch the production of component parts that can no longer be imported. This pertains to the manufacturing industry, logging engineering, agricultural engineering. Cooperation between our automakers is also on the agenda. In a number of sectors, we will create completely new production facilities from scratch. They will be ours and will not depend on anyone,” said Alexei Overchuk.
He added that these production facilities will be set up on the territory of Belarus. Russia, in turn, will provide funding. According to Alexei Overchuk, the work on seven such projects will be completed by the end of the year, after which it will be possible to embark on their implementation.
“In addition to that, we are redirecting our commodity flows to the east. We are doing our best to facilitate access for Belarusian producers to our infrastructure so that they will be able to sell their products in friendly countries. The trade between Belarus and Russia is on the rise. It went up by 10% year-on-year. Our economies have been seriously affected by the ongoing events, so the 10% increase is a very good result,” the deputy prime minister of Russia believes.
