Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko: Belarus is interested in aligning transport potentials of EAEU, SCO

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MINSK, 3 July (BelTA) – As an exporting country Belarus is interested more than anyone else in aligning the transport and logistics potentials of the EAEU and the SCO, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in an interview with the international news agency Kazinform in the run-up to the SCO summit in Astana, BelTA has learned.

“The creation of a sustainable transport and logistics framework in Eurasia with sufficient route capacity is one of the key integration tasks for the EAEU and the SCO. Indeed, it is impossible to maintain an effective trade system in the region without competitive logistics,” the Belarusian leader said.

He noted that this is an ambitious task given that the aggregate territory of the SCO member countries spans more than 35 million square kilometers, the total population is about 3.5 billion people (almost half of the world's population), and the total GDP is $25.5 trillion.

As for the EAEU, it is necessary to ensure unimpeded movement of goods worth hundreds of billions of dollars. In 2023 alone, this figure was almost $800 billion.

“The SCO accounts for about 40% of the exports of the EAEU member states. It is obvious that the mutual trade in goods made in the EAEU and the SCO countries will grow steadily,” said the president of Belarus. “Promising avenues of cooperation include the synchronization of the work to develop international transport corridors such as “North-South”, “East-West”, their alignment with the Belt and Road Initiative of our Chinese friends. This initiative was put forward by us some time ago, and a lot has already been done to bring it to fruition.”

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