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“In our export promotion strategy Russia will remain a high-priority trade ad economic partner. We export a lot of farm products there, which means that Belarusian products are widely popular with Russian consumers. Our strategy is simple: to preserve the volume and level of supplies we have reached in the previous years. Additional agricultural produce (both in meat and dairy) will be diversified,” Alexei Bogdanov stressed.

The head of the main division for foreign economic affairs noted that Russia is currently busy with import substitution matters, including in the agrarian sector. “This is the right decision. We have done the same a couple of decades ago. Today we are an export-oriented state. We need to negotiate with Russia further joint steps and our food supplies to their market. We do not want the Belarusian product to be viewed as net import, at least today when we have such integration associations as the Union State, the EEU. Many experts and politicians agree that we should develop a common market. We do not set obstacles to Russian Danone that brings yoghurts here. There are a lot of niches in Russia, and we should work together to be able to provide our nations with enough food,” he noted.

Alexei Bogdanov added that there are also unfriendly acts against Belarusian products. “They are partially founded, but the problem with the quality and safety is artificial. Not a single country complains about the quality and safety of our products,” he stressed.

According to the representative of the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry, Russia accounts for 94.5% of Belarus’ food exports. In January-November 2016 Belarus exported $1.946 billion worth of products to Russia. “This is a little less than we had last year (99.7%). We sold to all the Russian regions, with 20% of supplies bound to Moscow, 11.6% to St Petersburg, and 30.5% to Moscow Oblast,” he said.