Business news
Lukashenko urges to bring into line Belt and Road Initiative and EAEU’s new policy
An archive photo
MINSK, 27 February (BelTA) – It is necessary to bring into line China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the new policy of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in the future, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in an interview with Chinese media, BelTA has learned.
“We need to align the Belt and Road Initiative and the new policy of the Eurasian Economic Union,” the Belarusian leader said. According to him, the heads of the EAEU member states and Chinese President Xi Jinping agree with this. “Great China is welcome to make use of our capacities. The market is huge. Of course, not as big as the Chinese market in terms of population, but still very promising,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.
“China is making inroads into our direction. Naturally, the EAEU has its own interests and advantages. China should take these interests into account. And it does,” the head of state noted.
One of the important advantages of the region that China can benefit from is the logistics to promote Chinese goods, and here Belarus can be and is of great importance to China. “Belarus is located right in the center of Europe. A huge springboard for huge China to step up operations in the region. Go ahead and do it,” the president said. “I suggested this to Xi Jinping, and he agreed. The previous leaders had been cautious and had reservations about it. Contrary to them, Xi Jinping managed to see how China could benefit from cooperation with Belarus and decided to go for it, to create production facilities here and this is a convenient platform from where China can work all over the world,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
“Conflicts will end someday. Misunderstandings, disagreements will be resolved, but the interests of peoples and states will remain all important. It is in your interests to come here and launch operations in all economic sectors. We have no forbidden topics with the PRC. And this will not harm the neighbors. We are fully aware of America’s attempts to push Europe to follow an anti-Chinese path. Europe is resisting, and rightly so. Indeed, if they fence themselves off from China, they will come into conflict with China, and simultaneously they will be put on the back foot by America. “Europe may disappear. First of all, Western Europe. The Europeans understand this, and thus enormous opportunities are opening up for China in this regard. Come and work,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The president expressed confidence that all parties would benefit from aligning the Belt and Road Initiative with the EAEU policy: “We can benefit a lot from it not only in terms of logistics and simple trade, but also due to a two-way transfer of high technology. This is not long in coming. Therefore, this is very interesting for us, we have recently discussed ways to deepen cooperation with China at the CIS and the EAEU summits. The alignment can be based on the concept of the Belt and Road Initiative. This is a good proposal.”
print version
make home page
add to bookmarks
