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Belarus prime minister identifies EAEU development priorities
MINSK, 24 August (BelTA) – Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko identified development priorities of the Eurasian Economic Union at a session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Yerevan, Armenia, BelTA has learned.
Roman Golovchenko said: “The Belarusian side supports the initiative to begin work on a medium-term perspective of development of the Eurasian Economic Union, including the stipulation of the relevant approaches in the form of the declaration Russia has suggested. I will say a few words about the priorities, about the blocks that we believe the declaration needs to reflect. Energy industry is the first one. EAEU countries have considerable reserves of fuel and energy resources. Although work on the common markets of energy resources is in active phase, some issues remain unregulated. Further development of the energy dimension of the Eurasian Economic Union depends on them.”
The second priority is technological sovereignty and manufacturing cooperation. “Belarus has always identified cooperation in manufacturing sector as a priority task of integration. Goal-seeking actions are needed to expand manufacturing cooperation, ensure technological sovereignty, transfer of technologies, define and develop the specialization of countries in processing industry. There is no doubt that it is the future. The growth that is happening in processing industry now only confirms my words,” the prime minister noted.
“We believe that the real realization of such avenues as microelectronics, machine building, manufacturing of machine tools, pharmaceutics, production of medical equipment and so on is too slow for now. Without purposeful movement in this direction it would be extremely complicated for us to go beyond the limits of a trade union, albeit a successful one. This block is connected to joint R&D work, expansion of interaction in the field of new technologies. Artificial intelligence, new educational standards, innovative cooperation – all of it should become a genuine aspect of development of the union. And it should be accompanied by the development of joint forecasts of scientific and technological development. It is necessary to pool potential and implement real scientific and R&D projects,” the Belarusian head of government underlined.
The third block is food security. Roman Golovchenko remarked that Eurasian Economic Union countries boast quite high self-sufficiency with agricultural and food resources but some things need fixing. “Certain dependence on imported seeds and pedigree animals is a common challenge for all. It is a concrete task that we should deal with and truly demonstrate our joint accomplishments. I believe that replacing foreign genetic material is the most important task for the medium term perspective. This task is becoming a matter of national security in current conditions. This is why I believe that reaching a certain level of self-sufficiency with seeds and pedigree animals by, for instance, 2030 may be used as a guiding waypoint in this work. It is necessary to slate this task for execution and determine the sequence of actions. Absolutely all the countries have some potential. We’ve studied the matter rather thoroughly and know that every state has the relevant scientific institutions, applied science centers, and so on. But the current synergy is insufficient,” he pointed out.
The fourth block is transport infrastructure. The Eurasian Economic Union has determined a list of priority infrastructure projects meant to bolster the transit potential. “We see how much attention is paid to these matters at the national level. I am talking about the corridors East-West, North-South, the Trans-Caspian international transport route, and China’s Belt and Road initiative. But sources to finance these projects represent a problem: will it be done only at the national level or will we pool our resources? We’ve come up with sources to partially finance industrial projects but there is no list of the projects for now. And here the situation is reversed. We’ve adopted a list of infrastructure projects but no decision on ways to finance them has been made. It is necessary to use the potential of our relations in the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and BRICS. Last year the Shanghai Cooperation Organization adopted a concept for creating effective transport corridors. It is quite possible to link it to transport initiatives of the Eurasian Economic Union,” Roman Golovchenko said.
The fifth block is financial sovereignty and stability. “The union’s financial market requires additional tuning. The matter is becoming extremely important now,” the Belarusian head of government underlined.
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