NUCLEAR POWER IN BELARUS AND WORLDWIDE
MINSK, 20 April (BelTA) - Belarus and Laos have great reserves in regional cooperation, Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus Valery Mitskevich said as he met with Chairman of the Economy, Technology and Environment Committee of the National Assembly of the Lao People's Democratic Republic Linkham Douangsavanh, BelTA has learned.
“Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and difficult international situation, the Belarusian-Laotian trade decreased and in 2022 was even less than the volume of 2021. I believe that we need to make efforts together to find new points of growth. It is in our mutual interest. Belarus is a reliable partner in terms of supplying a wide range of machinery, trucks, quarry and municipal equipment, exporting the latest achievements in medicine, maternal and child health, and agriculture. There is a need to establish cooperation between the regions of Belarus and Laos. There are great reserves here,” Valery Mitskevich said.
According to him, the working groups set up by the parliaments of the two countries should prepare specific proposals for the agenda of the next meeting of the joint commission on bilateral cooperation between the governments of Belarus and the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The vice speaker also stressed that the Belarusian MPs welcome the initiative of Laos to sign a memorandum on inter-parliamentary cooperation.
“People's diplomacy is important. I would like to draw attention to personnel training and our capabilities in this area. As you could see, we have good IT-education. Unfortunately, there are no students from Laos in Belarusian universities today. At the same time Southeast Asian countries are well represented in Belarusian universities. Therefore, there are opportunities to intensify work between our higher educational institutions to form appropriate contractual relations on mutually beneficial terms,” Valery Mitskevich said. “I would also like to ask the Lao side to speed up consideration of the draft agreement between Belarus and Laos on mutual protection of classified information. It has been under consideration by the Lao side since 2018. This agreement is very important for the development of military and technical cooperation. Of course, we count on close cooperation with our Lao colleagues in the ASEAN IPA, in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, as well as in the recently established Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement. Especially since we have a good positive experience of mutual support in the international arena.
The parties exchanged opinions on the development of the Belarus-Laos relations, interaction in the international arena, including within the framework of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations.
