MINSK, 17 June (BelTA) – A project to make BelAZ haul trucks in Russia is in the pipeline, BelTA learned from State Secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Grigory Rapota as a new session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union State of Belarus and Russia opened on 17 June.
According to the state secretary, the Russian Industry and Trade Ministry and the Belarusian Economy Ministry are working on a pilot project to make haul trucks of the Belarusian automobile engineering company BelAZ in Russia. The companies Avtodiesel and Power Machines are expected to participate in the project.
Grigory Rapota described manufacturing cooperation projects to make road construction machines and forest harvesting machines powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) as promising.
The official said: “At the same time there are difficulties with enabling equal competition conditions for systemic automobile and agricultural machinery manufacturers on the Belarusian and Russian markets.” Prices for energy resources and differences in approaches to state support measures are the main stumbling blocks, Grigory Rapota explained. The initiative to get development institutions – the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus and Russia's Vnesheconombank – to support the export of jointly manufactured products to third countries has yet to be implemented.
The relevant Belarusian and Russian working groups are busy eradicating or reducing restrictions on merchandise trade and access to government procurement contracts. Civil engineering, partially production sector as well as pharmaceutics and agriculture are the cases in point.
In 2018 Belarus and Russia signed the food trade balance sheets for the next year in advance, Grigory Rapota noted. At the same time the introduction of temporary restrictions on the export of Belarusian animal husbandry and dairy products to Russia remains an irritating factor.
During today's session Union State MPs are expected to discuss the implementation of priority avenues and top-priority tasks of further development of the Union State of Belarus and Russia in 2018-2022. The MPs were informed about efforts to make Belarus-Russia trade and economic cooperation more effective and about efforts to develop the agribusiness complex in the Union State of Belarus and Russia.
Apart from that, participants of the session analyzed the execution of the resolution passed by the Union State Supreme State Council on 30 June 2017 to scrap roaming charges in the Union State. Results achieved by the Youth Chamber operating under the aegis of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union State of Belarus and Russia were summed up. In addition to MPs representatives of the Standing Committee of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, ministries and government agencies of Belarus and Russia, permanent observers under the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, members of the Youth Chamber are taking part in the session.
