Business news

MINSK, 10 November (BelTA) – It is necessary to find new ways to raise Belarus-Ukraine trade to $8 billion. Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko made the statement during the session of the Belarusian-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation on 10 November, BelTA has learned.

Vladimir Semashko said: “The key goal of today’s meeting is to find concrete growth points that will help us restore the volume of trade with Ukraine to $8 billion and move on from there.”

The Deputy Prime Minister reminded that Belarus-Ukraine trade totaled $8 billion in 2012, however, the figure has been falling due to objective and subjective reasons. “The fact that we are recovering now is important. We have the potential to restore the trade turnover we had in the past within the next two years,” stressed the official.

“We’ve been working to address complicated issues. As a result, I can state that in January-September 2016 we noticed a small increase in the volume of trade with Ukraine up to $2.8 billion or plus 10%,” stated the Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus.

Production sector, transport, logistics, and other areas look promising with regard to Belarus-Ukraine cooperation. Manufacturing cooperation for making utility vehicles and agricultural machines represents the engine that drives Belarus-Ukraine cooperation. Vladimir Semashko explained that certain ways to work with the Ukrainian side in this area had been sketched out already. “We are ready to produce more while relying on the maximum level of localization,” stressed the official. Apart from that, plans have been made to set up an effective system to provide warranty service to the vehicles and machines in order to rule out the need to import components.