PM on Belarus’ trade with Russia: record set, and it needs to be surpassed in 2023
Time has confirmed the correctness of the chosen course for closer integration with Russia – as noted by Belarus’ Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko at today’s meeting with the President on the implementation of the Union State integration programmes
"Despite serious challenges, sanctions, restrictions and so on, Belarus and Russia continue to develop co-operation in all spheres," the Prime Minister stressed. “From January-November 2022, a historically maximum volume of mutual turnover of goods and services was registered: $45bn. I believe this figure could reach $50bn based on the results of 12 months.”
Mr. Golovchenko added that a positive balance has been recorded for Belarus for the first time. “A negative balance was one of the main problems for us in our mutual trade with Russia, and it made even up to $7bn in some years – which means we imported more goods from Russia than selling there,” he said.
Later, in his talk with journalists, the Prime Minister explained that the positive balance was achieved not so much due to a reduction in imports from the Russian Federation, but due to the growth of Belarusian exports in physical and monetary terms.
“Of course, global prices and the situation related to the freeing of some product niches in the Russian market helped us, but this does not mean that everything happened automatically. That was a serious multi-level work – with participation of the President, the Government, ministers and company heads – aimed to satisfy the emerging demand in the Russian market and to fill the vacuum with our goods,” the Prime Minister said.
Mr. Golovchenko added that the tasks for 2023 are more complex, “A record was set, but we need to surpass it this year. The price factor will no longer play such a [great] role. The global price growth is slowing down, and this will also affect the Belarusian export positions. Accordingly, much serious work lies ahead. In the coming future, a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Union State will be held, and a decision will be made as a result of it on holding the Supreme State Council of the Union State. I think all these events may well take place in Q1 2023.”
