Business news

MINSK, 16 January (BelTA) – Belarusian woodworking companies intend to participate in the establishment of a cluster in Damietta, Egypt. The possibility was discussed as Belarusian Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade Minister Vladimir Koltovich met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Egypt to Russia with concurrent accreditation to Belarus Ihab Nasr, BelTA has learned.

During the meeting the sides discussed the main directions for advancing Belarus-Egypt relations and prospects of their reaching brand new levels.

Vladimir Koltovich is a co-chairman of the Belarusian-Egyptian trade commission. During the meeting he sketched out the main results achieved by the two governments as they worked to invigorate and advance the bilateral relations. The official also drew attention to matters of special interest for Belarus and Egypt.

Close attention was paid to amending the roadmap on advancing Belarus-Egypt cooperation in 2017-2018.

The antimonopoly regulation and trade minister drew attention to four blocks of problems, which need to be addressed. Those include the promotion of agricultural products and services to the Egyptian market (projects to set up joint ventures to process poultry meat and beef, the construction of greenhouse farming enterprises, enterprises to make baby food, rye bread, other foods), cooperation in manufacturing sector (manufacturing cooperation projects, modernization and expansion of existing assembly enterprises and the establishment of new joint ventures), the promotion of tires made by Belarusian Belshina in Egypt, and the participation of Belarusian companies in the establishment of a woodworking cluster in Damietta.

Ihab Nasr assured he would forward the acquired information to the relevant ministries and government agencies for the sake of accelerating the resolution of these problems.

Vladimir Koltovich expressed confidence in further effective advancement of the bilateral relations.

In January-November 2017 Belarus-Egypt trade totaled $82.7 million, 48.4% up from the same period of 2016.