Ambassador: Belarus-Russia trade in services shows explosive growth

The ambassador noted that trade in services has had unjustifiably little attention. "We always talk about goods, about turnover, but we have the services sector. Last year, the trade in services amounted to $6 billion, up by 29% which was twice the growth rate of mutual trade in goods. This year (data is already available for the first quarter), trade in services surged by 31%, which was also almost twice as high as mutual trade in goods," he said.

At the same time, Ambassador Dmitry Krutoi cited data that trade in services between Belarus and Russia from 2009 to 2019 average $1.5 billion. “We have explosive growth here, which few people talk about," he stressed.

According to the ambassador, now the transport sector dominates the Belarusian-Russian trade in services, which is associated with the efforts to redirect commodity flows. "I would like to say that the transport industry of the Union State works perfectly, it actually faces the tasks no less difficult than the manufacturing sector," he said.

The diplomat also drew attention to the fact that IT has come in second in trade in services between the two countries for the last year and a half. "Mutual cooperation here exceeded more than $1 billion. I have talked to the heads of regions, including on the sidelines of this forum, and many of them single out IT services as one of the key topics on the bilateral agenda," Ambassador Dmitry Krutoi added.