Наверх

News

Union State

07.10.2008

Prime Ministers of Belarus and Russia confirmed their interest in more profound economic integration

The present factor of the world financial crisis as well as US missile defense system in Eastern Europe and the deviation from a range of priorities in Russia’s joining the WTO require a new level of action cooperation in economic sphere. In this connection there is a set of priority issues that are likely to be considered at the Supreme State Council session on November, 3rd in 2008, said Belarusian Prime Minister at the opening session of Union State restricted Council of Minister.

The present factor of the world financial crisis as well as US missile defense system in Eastern Europe and the deviation from a range of priorities in Russia’s joining the WTO require a new level of action cooperation in economic sphere. In this connection there is a set of priority issues that are likely to be considered at the Supreme State Council session on November, 3rd in 2008, said Belarusian Prime Minister at the opening session of Union State restricted Council of Minister.

And Vladimir Putin in the connection with the currency crisis, that “broke out in the USA and spread over to Europe”, expressed his interest in further development of currency integration by means of currency pool creation and Russian rouble use expansion in mutual accounts. According to Russian PM it is unclear why while implementing serious energy projects Belarus and Russia settle accounts with US dollars. He also added that “the issue of common currency in some historical perspective hasn’t been removed from the agenda”. V.Putin specified that this process will undoubtedly take into accounts national interests of the Republic of Belarus.

Prime Ministers of Belarus and Russia also paid attention to the regularity of meetings within the scopes of Union government that is connected with the decision on topical issues of Belarusian and Russian economic integration cooperation.

“Recently we have managed to get ministries and departments of Belarus and Russian working actively”, - said S.Sidorski. In particular Belarusian PM informed that the procedure of ratification of agreement on union property is at its final stage: in October of the current year Belarusian Parliament will consider this issue. Apart from that “Belarus and Russia have considerably improved in unification of national systems of price rate regulation”. As S.Sidorski pointed out the 95, 6% unification degree has been achieved. “Only few out of tens of thousands of uncoordinated positions remain”, -he specified.

As far as customs regulation is concerned, according to S.Sidorski Belarus is ready for further steps in the creation of Customs union within the scopes of Belarus-Kazakhstan-Russia group of three. According to his words it is possible to assume Union State groundwork as a basis of a single customs tariff of EurAsEC customs space.

V.Putin also supported the opinion of S.Sidorski concerning the necessity for customs tariffs coordination. “It is very important when we take into account the aim of the creation of a full-fledged customs union”, - he said.

In general V.Putin expressed his satisfaction with the way of development of bilateral economic cooperation between Belarus and Russia. “The bilateral trade has increased by 60% - for Russia it is a record rate in comparison with other our partners. And this occurs naturally due to the special relations between Belarus and Russia, due to our union relations”, - explained the head of Russian government. He specified that not all aims set have been achieved, but the main thing is to see and formulate them correctly.