Opinions & Interviews

"We traditionally view the relations with India as the priority of our foreign policy, not only in Asia but also globally. We appreciate the friendly ties between our two countries and sincerely strive to develop them further. We hope to raise our cooperation to the level of strategic partnership,” said Andrei Kobyakov.

The Belarusian head of government stated that this year Belarus hosted India President Pranab Mukherjee; a number of agreements were further developed. "Important is India's decision to open a credit line to finance projects in Belarus," said the Prime Minister.

According to him, Belarus attaches priority attention to the development of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. In 2014 the mutual trade exceeded $400 million, which was up 13.5% from 2013. "This year, we also got a 20% growth. But we need to admit that the $0.5 billion trade is not the level that corresponds to the potential of the two countries,” said Andrei Kobyakov. In this regard, the Prime Minister assured that Belarus will make every effort to expand trade and economic relations.

Andrei Kobyakov said that Belarus hopes to increase shipments of potash fertilizers, engineering products to India and will welcome the arrival of Indian pharmaceutical companies on its market. According to him, an integral part of the cooperation between Belarus and India is interaction in educational and scientific-technological areas.

The Prime Minister expressed gratitude to the Indian side for the inclusion of Belarus in the list of countries- participants of the Indian Technical & Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC). "Belarus is ready to provide India its R&D developments in various areas. A good example of cooperation is the export of Belarusian aerospace and electro-optical laser technologies to India. I want to believe that the cooperation in these and other areas will be further enhanced as well,” said Andrei Kobyakov.

He said that the Government of Belarus is ready to support India’s initiatives on any mutually beneficial project in various industries.

Andrei Kobyakov congratulated Pankaj Saxena on the appointment to the post of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Belarus, wished him a pleasant stay on the Belarusian land and fruitful work on the post of the Ambassador.

For his part, Pankaj Saxena thanked Andrei Kobyakov for the meeting and conveyed the greetings of the leadership of India.