Business news

MINSK, 22 June (BelTA) – Belarus intends to ship considerably more mining machines to Indonesia, BelTA learned from Ambassador of Belarus to Indonesia and Belarus’ resident representative in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Vladimir Lopato-Zagorsky after the fifth session of the Belarusian-Indonesian commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation in Minsk on 22 June.

The Ambassador explained that the joint projects both sides are interested in were also discussed at a meeting of representatives of business circles at premises of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko. Vladimir Lopato-Zagorsky said: “Among these projects I would like to mention plans to greatly expand the sales of our mining machines to Indonesia. BelAZ is now taking part in tenders as part of two major projects that involve the delivery of such machines, including for one of the largest coal-mining companies. We have all reasons to believe that success will be assured in these tenders.” According to Vladimir Lopato-Zagorsky, nine BelAZ vehicles have been used in Indonesia for several years now and have demonstrated the advantages of Belarusian machines. The diplomat said he hopes that the Belarusian side will get the results of the tenders in Q3-Q4 2015.

The negotiations held on 22 June also touched upon the sales of urban passenger transport to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. In particular, the Jakarta mayor is expected to visit Moscow soon. It is possible the mayor may go to Belarus as well. A presentation of Belarusian passenger vehicles will then be arranged either in Moscow or Minsk. The Belarusian side intends to start shipping them to Indonesia by 2016-2017.

“Naturally we also talked about supplies of potash fertilizers,” continued the Ambassador. In 2014 Belarus exported 750,000 tonnes of fertilizers to Indonesia, occupying roughly 30% of the Indonesian market. “There are reasons to believe that more potash fertilizers will be sold to Indonesia next year,” he remarked.

According to Vladimir Lopato-Zagorsky, food export to Indonesia holds a lot of promise for Belarus, in particular, dairy products of which Indonesia imports a lot. The Ambassador explained that after fulfilling some administrative procedures Belarus will be able to sell a lot of food to Indonesia by the end of the year.

Apart from that, the negotiations also touched upon military technology cooperation (repair, maintenance, shipment of hardware).

“I think it is quite feasible to reach the previously voiced trade turnover figure of $1 billion [by 2018],” added Vladimir Lopato-Zagorsky.

The Belarusian and Indonesian sides signed two documents at premises of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 22 June. The documents are the protocol of the fifth session of the Belarusian-Indonesian commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation and the memorandum of cooperation between the Belarusian Telegraph Agency and the Indonesian news agency Antara.

Belarusian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Valentin Rybakov noted that the Belarusian side believes the visit was a success and intends to do everything possible in order to implement the decisions made during the session and step up bilateral cooperation in trade, economic sphere and other ones.