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The Belarusian part of the workgroup is led by Brest Oblast Governor Anatoly Lis. The Russian part is headed by Irkutsk Oblast Governor Sergei Levchenko. During the meeting the sides discussed prospects of advancing cooperation and signed the minutes of the first session. Sergei Levchenko explained that the workgroup is supposed to put together a roadmap for fulfilling the cooperation agreement that the Belarusian government and the Irkutsk Oblast government have signed. “It is quite a serious task because late January 2017 is the deadline. I think we will come to terms on the subgroups that will work in parallel in all the areas we have sketched out,” said the Irkutsk Oblast Governor.

Sergei Levchenko also said he would like to add two more avenues of cooperation to the list of more than twenty promising cooperation avenues. He suggested tourism in addition to mutual exchange programs between scientific institutions, primarily those related to agriculture. “Since the western border of the Commonwealth of Independent States is located here and there are quite many places of interest in Brest Oblast and Belarus as a whole, we could build some ‘bridge’ between Irkutsk Oblast and Belarus,” noted the Governor. In his opinion, taking care of arranging charter flights first would be a good idea.

Anatoly Lis backed the proposal of his Russian counterpart. The Brest Oblast Governer said he believes that quite many residents of the Belarusian region would like to visit Lake Baikal and quite many Irkutsk Oblast residents would like to see the national park Belovezhskaya Pushcha and other places of interest in Belarus. “Apart from that, Belarus can welcome tourists from Irkutsk, who would like to continue their journey into countries of the European Union. I think flying for 5-6 hours should not be a problem. We can work in this direction,” agreed the head of the Brest Oblast administration.

Anatoly Lis noted that bolstering the trade and economic relations was the main task of the workgroup on cooperation. In January-September 2016 trade between Belarus and Irkutsk Oblast was nearly halved. “By February we should put together a concrete working plan to implement the agreement and take care of all the areas. In addition to reaching the figures we had in the past we will have to exceed them. All the opportunities are available for it,” stressed the Brest Oblast Governor.

The delegation of Russia’s Irkutsk Oblast intends to visit a number of enterprises on 7 December, including Brest Electrotechnical Plant, the dairy products company OAO Savushkin Product, the civil engineering company Brestzhilstroy, and the agricultural company Chernavchitsy. During the two-day visit the guests from Russia are expected to also be made familiar with the national park Belovezhskaya Pushcha and the Brest Hero Fortress Memorial.