Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 27 April (BelTA) – The development of regional cooperation is a powerful foundation of Belarusian-Russian interaction. The opinion was voiced by Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov as he met with Boris Dubrovsky, Governor of Chelyabinsk Oblast of the Russian Federation, on 27 April, BelTA has learned.

“We always have a great interest in and pay close attention to visits of representatives of regions of Russia. Every time we find more and more new opportunities for cooperation. We have said more than once that the development of trade, economic, cultural cooperation and all the other kinds of cooperation with regions of Russia represents a most powerful foundation of Belarusian-Russian interaction and cooperation,” stressed the Prime Minister of Belarus.

Trade between Belarus and Chelyabinsk Oblast has dropped recently. “We should stop the falling trade trend and start a growth trend,” said Andrei Kobyakov. He mentioned several promising cooperation avenues. “There are good reserves in mechanical engineering, agriculture and food industry, woodworking, petrochemical industry and a number of other areas. We should also work hard to advance manufacturing and R&D cooperation,” believes the Prime Minister.

“Chelyabinsk Oblast intends to set up a machine tool engineering cluster. Our holding company Belstankoinstrument is capable of carrying out serious projects and many partners in Russia use the company’s capabilities. We can do a lot together and make the products that will sell not only in Belarus and Russia’s Chelyabinsk Oblast but the entire Commonwealth of Independent States,” stressed Andrei Kobyakov. Belarus has value to offer in the areas of agricultural machinery engineering, civil engineering, and promising R&D projects for agriculture, he added.

According to the Chelyabinsk Oblast Governor, the Russian side had failed to set the proper scale of the tasks it intended to achieve before the visit began. “In the course of our work we saw the scale of your mechanical engineering industry and the machine tool engineering industry. We understand that all the plans of ours can be implemented because we see the real interest on the part of Belarusian colleagues. We are greatly optimistic in evaluating the meetings that have been held already,” stressed Boris Dubrovsky.

During the meeting the sides signed an action plan designed to advance trade, economic, scientific, technical, and cultural cooperation between the Belarus government and the government of Russia’s Chelyabinsk Oblast in 2015-2017. Apart from that, a memorandum on establishing twin city relations between the Gomel District administration and the Magnitogorsk city administration was signed.