Business news

The meeting focused on the current state of trade and economic relations and their development prospects. In 2014 the bilateral trade of Brest Oblast and Armenia increased 8.6% over the level of 2013 to reach $2.5 million. The Belarusian export accounted for the lion’s share of this amount. Brest Oblast exported clothes, furniture and other timber products, batteries, fish, malt, flour and other goods to Armenia. Main imports from Armenia are ethanol, medications.

Four years ago Brest Oblast signed an agreement on trade, economic and cultural cooperation with Armenia’s Ararat Province. According to Sergei Ashmyantsev, it gave a strong impetus to the development of relations and is a good foundation of bolstering business and cultural contacts at the regional level.

Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia Eduard Sharmazanov said that there are new opportunities for cooperation in the Eurasian Economic Union. “Armenia joined the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015. It opens up new opportunities for the development of the Armenian and Belarusian economies because our countries have tariff-free duty-free foreign trade. We have the same rules of play,” the head of the Armenian delegation noted.

Commenting on the results of the meeting at the Brest Oblast Executive Committee, he expressed satisfaction with the existing level of understanding. “We have discussed many details of our further cooperation, first of all, trade and economic cooperation. The level of this cooperation between regions and between Belarus and Armenia in general does not match the level of friendly, fraternal political relations between the countries yet. We must do our best to reverse the trend. Regions can do a lot here,” the vice speaker of the Armenian parliament concluded.