Business news

MOSCOW, 29 September (BelTA) – It is important to step up efforts to facilitate the access to the markets of Belarus and Russia for the companies of the two countries, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the session of the Union State government in Moscow on 29 September, BelTA has learned.

Dmitry Medvedev noted that both sides have complaints regarding this issue. “We must minimize and remove them,” he said.

The Prime Minister of Russia noted that Belarusian and Russian companies vigorously use the national currencies in mutual payments. As a result, the economies of the two countries become less sensitive to external factors.

“The economic relations of Belarus and Russia are comprehensive and diverse,” Dmitry Medvedev said. In particular, the countries implement large bilateral investment projects, including the project to build the Belarusian NPP, science intensive projects. “The potential of the bilateral cooperation is huge,” he said.

Apart from that, Dmitry Medvedev believes that the sides need to analyze the structure of commodity flows. According to him, there are objective and subjective reasons for the fall in the mutual trade. Meanwhile, the Russian Prime Minister stressed that when calculated in U.S. dollars the Belarusian-Russian trade decreased but went up almost 20% when calculated in Russian rubles.