MINSK, 1 July (BelTA) – The Forum of Regions of Belarus and Russia has become a key economic and communication project of the Union State, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the plenary session of the 8th Forum of Regions of Belarus and Russia on 1 July, BelTA has learned.
“Traditional meetings held under the auspices of the upper chambers of parliaments have become the most important economic and communication project of the Union State,” the Belarusian leader said.
He went on saying that Belarus maintains close contacts with more than 70 regions of Russia - from Smolensk to Sakhalin; every year Minsk welcomes a dozen delegations led by Russian governors.
“This and the very work of the forums of regions show that there is no other large-scale integration platform in the Eurasian space where Belarus-Russia cooperation would develop so successfully,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
According to the president, the main distinguishing feature of such meetings is a meaningful, candid, open and very useful dialogue between friends and partners. “And the results of many years of joint work are quite real and appreciable. Over the past seven years, more than 370 cooperation agreements and contracts have been signed to the amount of nearly $3 billion. Moreover, I would like to emphasize that more than a quarter of this amount is the result of last year's business meetings,” the head of state said. He is convinced that such a progress is very encouraging.
The ongoing forum is expected to add another $800 million to the total amount of agreements and contracts, the Belarusian leader noted.
Aleksandr Lukashenko thanked Natalya Kochanova and Valentina Matviyenko, the heads of the upper chambers of the parliaments of Belarus and Russia for doing great job organizing the forum. “The unique form of work of our forum (we are unlikely to find anything like that anywhere in the world), where parliamentarians, in addition to fulfilling their direct responsibilities of passing laws, are so deeply involved in economic matters. The Forum of Regions is primarily an economic platform, a platform for the governments,” he said. The participation of the presidents in the forum, according to the Belarusian leader, allows bringing a larger number of participants to this event.
