CIS Secretary General: trend of increasing economic co-operation between CIS members set to continue

The volume of economic co-operation between the CIS countries is increasing, and this trend will continue — as stated by CIS Secretary General Sergei Lebedev before today’s meeting of the Council of Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives of the CIS member states to the statutory and other bodies of the Commonwealth in Minsk, sb.by reports

“Tashkent has recently hosted a meeting of the CIS Economic Council, where the results of co-operation in the economic sphere were announced. Notably, the average GDP in the CIS member states grew by 4.4 percent overall — much higher than, e.g., in European countries. In some countries, such as the Baltic States, it is even negative. All of our figures are positive. Mutual trade is also growing,” Mr. Lebedev noted.

“The markets of Western states are closed to us. Now we are actively increasing the volume of trade between the CIS countries. A major advantage of this mutual trade is that almost 90 percent of trade between the CIS members is settled in national currencies, which greatly facilitates trade,” the CIS Secretary General explained.

According to him, trade between the EAEU member states is developing most rapidly. At the same time, the CIS countries that are not members of the EAEU have also increased their mutual trade.

“There has been an increase in industrial production and mutual investment. For example, Belarus is now investing actively in Kazakhstan and other CIS republics, setting up enterprises to assemble agricultural products there. Russia is establishing car assembly plants in the CIS countries. Uzbekistan is developing its automotive industry. These are just some of the many areas of co-operation that indicate the growing volume of economic interaction between our countries, and judging by what we see, this trend is set to continue and develop,” Mr. Lebedev stated.