Posted: 22.01.2025 11:40:00

Serbian minister: Belarus, Serbia developing thanks to their leaders

Both Serbia and Belarus are developing thanks to their leaders, Minister of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, co-chairman of the Belarusian-Serbian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Co-operation Nenad Popovic shared his opinion with journalists after visiting the International Exhibition Centre in Minsk. He heads a delegation that is visiting Belarus on January 21st-22nd.

Mr. Popovic noted that the successes of our country demonstrated at the exhibition are impressive. “Here are new technologies in medicine, mechanical engineering, machine tool building, military equipment, and digitalisation. Belarus is developing as never before, the economy is growing, roads are being built, social issues are being solved. Everything that is happening in Belarus is very dynamic, the country is developing at a rapid pace even despite the Western sanctions: this is very important. You have great engineers, excellent programmers and agricultural workers. I am confident that thanks to this, the country’s economy will continue to develop.”

Serbia does not hide its deep sympathy for Belarus’ President and considers the achievements of sovereign Belarus a merit of the Head of State. Mr. Popovic also attributes the development of Serbia to the leadership qualities of the Serbian President, “Our heads of state are the leaders of the free world. Freedom and independence have always been and remain one of the key values for our peoples. This has been the case for centuries,” the Serbian minister pointed out. “We have always defended our freedom and fought for it. Today, our presidents, our governments, and our peoples continue this path, and they want to independently determine their vector in politics, economy, and traditional values, choosing their own future.”

Mr. Popovic emphasised that Serbia has a good attitude towards Aleksandr Lukashenko, “We love your President very much because he helped Serbia, he was with us when it was very difficult for us. In 1999, we were bombed, people died, there was a lot of destruction, and your President was the only one who came to us. He flew to us, risking his life to support us, the brotherly people, in a difficult time: this is something that is not forgotten.”

The official expressed confidence that the two countries will continue to liaise more closely thanks to the mutual understanding that the heads of state outlined on the side-lines of the Baku climate summit in November 2024. At that time, Aleksandr Lukashenko invited his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic to resume the work of the Belarusian-Serbian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Co-operation, the last meeting of which was held in January 2019. Our leader’s initiative was supported.

“It is important that there are regular meetings of this commission so that we can identify target points and monitor the results on a quarterly basis,” Mr. Popovic shared his opinion.

Speaking about economic interaction, the Serbian politician described it as good and added that the potential is many times more.

“We have to make sure that every year the trade turnover increases by at least 20-30 percent. We need to work. We have already held a number of meetings and we see that there is a desire. We’ll meet with representatives of the Belarusian Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade [MART Head heads the Belarusian part of the Belarusian-Serbian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Co-operation and is also the assigned official responsible for co-ordinating co-operation between the two countries], and this should give a new dynamic to our economic movement, the results of which we should see in the near future,” Mr. Popovic emphasised.

photos: www.belta.by