Lukashenko: Industrial cooperation is a key area in bilateral relations

MOSCOW, 6 April (BelTA) – Industrial cooperation is a key area in the Belarusian-Russian relations, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State in the Kremlin in Moscow on 6 April, BelTA has learned.

“The number of trade transactions is a marker of the success of our economic cooperation. Over the past 27 years trade has increased by more than four and a half times. Industrial cooperation is a key area in bilateral relations. Today it is the ties between more than 8,000 Belarusian and Russian enterprises, hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

During the years of its existence the Union State has implemented more than 60 joint scientific and technical programs in various areas, including space exploration, information technologies, agriculture, production of materials and devices.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also mentioned the development of cooperation between young scientists of the two countries. Addressing the Russian president, he said: “Young people have held a meeting. I mean what you told me in Minsk. Young scientists have outlined a program of further development. They have started with the student who once posed a question to you. You called to say that we need to move in this direction. We held a meeting of young scientists at the Academy of Sciences, and found a number of important points of contact for the future work.”

“Many developments are successfully put into production, thus contributing to the implementation of the import substitution program and reducing dependence on Western technologies,” the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko recalled that earlier he had discussed with Vladimir Putin an important issue of import substitution in microelectronics. The presidents revisited the matter during the talks in the Kremlin on 5 April. The president emphasized that he had recently studied this topic in detail during his visit to the Planar company in Minsk. The company's specialists assured that aircraft and rockets would fly as they did - Belarus has all necessary technologies and capabilities for that.