Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 20 October (BelTA) – The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) must build relations without exemptions and restrictions which impede mutual trade between the countries, Belarus’ Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said as he met with Chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Tigran Sargsyan in Minsk on 20 October, BelTA has learned.

“This year the Eurasian Economic Commission has been actively working on free trade agreements with third countries. We welcome this. This is a priority for Kazakhstan, who is holding the presidency in the Eurasian Economic Union this year. Nevertheless, we would like to once again draw attention to the fact that good relationships with third countries will be truly as such when the relations inside the union will be free of exemptions and restrictions impeding the mutual trade among the EEU member states. The priorities that Belarus announced during its presidency in 2015, which was the first year of operation of the Eurasian Economic Union, remain the same, and we must make substantial advances towards this goal,” Andrei Kobyakov said.

Andrei Kobyakov noted the active interaction of Belarus and the Eurasian Economic Commission. “This is not your first visit to Minsk. We believe that the more we meet, the better it will be. We had a good start in what regards the meetings of the heads of government. Minsk will play host to the fourth meeting. The number of issues that we deal with is not decreasing. This suggests that such a format is much needed, and that many issues cannot be, unfortunately, solved at the level of experts and need to be brought to the level of the heads of government. We believe that we need to solve them in a prompt manner,” Andrei Kobyakov noted.

According to him, the items on the agenda of the meeting of the Intergovernmental Council will include big issues, including the EEU Customs Code, a traceability mechanism fro goods.

For his part, Tigran Sargsyan thanked Andrei Kobyakov for Belarus’ effort to maintain vibrant interaction with the EEC. “The request for the meeting was due to urgent issues that, in our view, need to be solved to facilitate the integration, assist the national governments in stimulating economic growth, that is a priority today,” he said.