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Belarus, Russia encouraged to better coordinate import substitution
MINSK, 2 February (BelTA) – Belarus and Russia need to step up efforts meant to coordinate import substitution work. Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko made the statement as he met with Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin, BelTA has learned.
Roman Golovchenko said: “We should not lose sight of a very important thing: strategic development of the Union State of Belarus and Russia. Since we are too busy dealing with routine matters of finance and trade barriers, we pay little attention to the coordination of creation of joint strategies for the development of industries. Primarily industries of the future such as microelectronics, pharmaceutics, IT sector, automobile industry.”
In his words, substitution of critical imports was one of the key tasks being addressed within the framework of the Union State of Belarus and Russia in 2022. “Mutual trade in such products was close to Br1.2 billion over the course of one year according to our records, although I think the figures in reality are much larger. We did it within the framework of anticrisis, urgent situational measures. I believe it is necessary to put more efforts into coordinating import substitution in addition to the projects the Russian Federation lends money to for the sake of realization in Belarus,” the prime minister noted. “As many as 12 passports have been reconciled. We are getting ready to begin selection for some. Another four passports are in the pipeline.”
The Belarusian head of government suggested synchronizing industry-specific import substitution programs. “We’ve analyzed 20 Russian programs and see that demand for some of the goods can be fully satisfied by Belarusian enterprises. In the same manner Russian manufacturers can be seamlessly integrated into Belarusian import substitution programs. I suggest stepping up work in this area and go ahead with note comparison and synchronization,” he said.
Roman Golovchenko remarked that it is necessary to transition to the realization of joint investment projects in microelectronics, machine tool production, medical industry, and pharmaceutical industry. “These are complicated things. We have to decide on doers and tools for financing and co-financing. We have to work out kind of a trek for several years. We have to pool efforts for the development and creation of cutting-edge scientific and technical solutions in various branches of the economy,” the prime minister concluded.
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