Mikhail Mishustin met with Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus Roman Golovchenko.
Documents signed after the talks
From the transcript:
Russian-Belarusian talks
Mikhail Mishustin meets with Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko
Singing of the documents following Russian-Belarusian talks
Russian-Belarusian talks
Mikhail Mishustin: Mr Golovchenko, colleagues, I am delighted to welcome you. Welcome to the Government House of the Russian Federation.
Your visit to Moscow follows the talks between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on 11 March. We need to coordinate our actions to implement the decisions that were made at the highest level.
I would like to repeat that we in Russia sincerely value our partnership and allied relations with Belarus. Our fraternal peoples are linked by bonds of friendship. This year, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
We are grateful to our Belarusian friends for their constructive approach to the situation around Ukraine. It is highly important and valuable to us.
Western countries have been putting strong sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation and Belarus. Their goal is to undermine our economic potential, impede the operation of our financial systems, break production chains and ultimately worsen the quality of life of our citizens.
In this situation, we are taking coordinated measures to protect our economic security and the technological sovereignty of Russia and Belarus.
First, we deem it necessary to strengthen the integration of the Union State. The 28 union programmes approved by the Supreme State Council in November last year have created a solid foundation for this. They will contribute to building a single economic and social space, deep cooperation in industry, energy, agriculture, the digital economy, the transport industry and many other industries.
We are making intensive efforts to harmonise our tax, customs, and antimonopoly regulations and draft common rules for banking and finance.
It is important to work together to continue to expand bilateral trade, which grew by 34 percent last year compared to 2020 and reached $38.5 billion.
We continue to implement major investment projects and accelerate the launch of new initiatives. We will strengthen the mutual supply chains for goods and services and expand our import substitution programmes. And most importantly, we will identify new growth points for the economies of Russia and Belarus.
I am confident that the illegitimate economic sanctions will not be able to hinder the progress of integration in the Union State and the further expansion of our fraternal relations.
Today, we are ready to discuss our most urgent tasks concerning trade and economic cooperation between Russia and Belarus, as the heads of our states have outlined.
Please, Mr Golovchenko, I am giving the floor to you.
Roman Golovchenko: Thank you, Mr Mishustin, delegation members.
It is true that in recent weeks the Republic of Belarus has been hit by Western sanctions, just like the Russian Federation, which were imposed on us with the wording “for complicity” or “assistance” in the Russian military operation in Ukraine. Some sanctions are the same as in Russia and some exceed them. For example, an embargo has been imposed on almost all export-oriented sectors of the Belarusian economy, that is, full sectoral sanctions against products in engineering, the timber industry, building materials, chemicals, petrochemicals, the tobacco industry and others. The list is long.
If we don’t take response measures this will result in a gap in the balance of payments, a sharp increase in inflation and a drop in household income.
In addition, the Belarusian banking system is suffering under serious problems, which, due to its compactness, fell under the total cross sanctions of the European Union and the United States.
In addition, a ban was basically introduced on the purchase of Western components and raw materials. The goal of all these actions is clear: to provoke an economic crisis, increase the number of dissatisfied people, to make a new attempt to undermine the country and bring an anti-Russia regime to power based on the fugitive opposition.
So we believe that in these conditions we have to act quickly and in sync. Considering the Belarusian economy’s high vulnerability to external shocks, we are counting on the Russian Federation’s support in this difficult period.
We reaffirm our readiness to implement all the agreements on economic integration within the Union State. Under these conditions however, due to the latest developments, there is an urgent need for the prompt implementation of those support measures that were “for later.” This includes the transfer, the restructuring of credit debt on government loans from the Government and the financial institutions of Russia. This is a transition to a new price system for Russian oil, which would ensure the stable operation of Belarusian refineries with minimal profitability. We also propose fixing natural gas prices for the Republic of Belarus in Russian roubles to the current wholesale gas prices for neighbouring Russian regions. This also means increasing the sale of Belarusian engineering products to Russian markets, including through lifting the remaining administrative barriers. Of course, it is very important to participate in import substitution programmes. Here the industry ministries have to work accurately and carefully to use our mutual potential as much as possible to substitute unavailable imports. This also means the full involvement of the Belarusian economy’s military sector in implementing measures of the state defence order from the Russian Federation, and removing administrative barriers in military-technical cooperation. We have not really discussed this area lately, but I think this was wrong, and we need to take a very detailed look at cooperation in the military-industrial sphere.
This is why, Mr Mishustin and delegation members, I suggest discussing these issues, among others. I know that the level of relations we have, as well as the confidence and the entire current situation where we need to work together will help us find mutually beneficial solutions.
After his meeting with the
President of Russia last week, Alexander Lukashenko told me that all the issues
raised by the Belarusian side were met positively. In this context, the heads
of state instructed us today to develop and formalise specific decisions. So, I
suggest we focus on the issues discussed by the heads of state and, in fact, go
through them in the same order they were discussed at the presidents’ meeting.
The following documents were signed following the talks:
Singing of the documents following Russian-Belarusian talks
– Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Belarus on amending provisions of certain Russian-Belarusian intergovernmental agreements.
– Protocol No.2 on amendments to the 6 October 2021 Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Belarus on providing a state financial loan to the Government
of the Republic
of Belarus.
Signed by the Finance Minister of the Republic of Belarus Yury Seliverstov and Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation Timur Maksimov.
