Business news

12 Apr 2021

India offers Belarus its COVID-19 vaccines

MINSK, 12 April (BelTA) – India has offered Belarus to use its vaccines against COVID-19, Belarus’ Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei said in an interview with the Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA has learned.

BelTA reported earlier that Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with outgoing Indian Ambassador to Belarus Sangeeta Bahadur on 8 April. The head of state hailed great prospects for further development of Belarus-India cooperation and invited India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Belarus.

“Our interaction with India is a good example of equal and fair cooperation despite the difference in the countries’ political clout. We have many projects of mutual interest in almost all fields. We are implementing several projects in pharmaceutics in association with Indian companies. There are also joint projects in the mining industry, Belarus supplies mining equipment to India. We also cooperate in IT and education,” Vladimir Makei noted.

Belarus and India have decided to invigorate cooperation in healthcare, with the focus on the pandemic response, Vladimir Makei said as he spoke about the meeting between Aleksandr Lukashenko and Ambassador Sangeeta Bahadur. “India has already rolled out two vaccines and has offered Belarus to use them for mass vaccination,” he added.

According to Vladimir Makei, there are also other agreements and projects that the two countries plan to launch.

“This is what normal, fair, equal cooperation between two countries looks like. There should be no exaggeration or politicization of certain issues concerning human rights or some other things, which are far-fetched most of the time,” Vladimir Makei said about Belarus’ relations with India.

India is currently producing two vaccines: Covishield, the locally manufactured AstraZeneca jab developed by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and Covaxin from the Indian company Bharat Biotech.