Belarus, Russia to sign food trade projections for 2021 in December

Ivan Krupko and Dmitry Patrushev discussed the marking of dairy products, matters of phytosanitary control, the fulfillment of this year's food trade projections and the development of the next year's food trade projections. The next year's documents are supposed to be reconciled and signed in December 2020.

The sides discussed the enhancement of Belarus-Russia cooperation in agriculture. Ivan Krupko noted that Belarusian agriculture and Russian agriculture did rather well in 2020. Despite a certain decrease in mutual trade in H1 2020 Russia remains one of the main partners for Belarus. Russia's share in Belarus' export is 75%. The share of Russian products in Belarus' total food import is 33.6%. The figure rose by 2.3 percentage points in 2020.

In January-August 2020 Belarus-Russia trade in agricultural products and food amounted to $3.7 billion. Belarus exported $2.8 billion worth of agricultural products to Russia and imported $919.1 million worth of agricultural products from Russia in January-August.

A number of events have helped make Belarus-Russia cooperation in agriculture stronger. A joint panel session on agriculture was held during the latest Forum of Regions of Belarus and Russia. The panel session was dedicated to social and economic activity of young people in the countryside. Representatives of Russia's Bryansk Oblast, Pskov Oblast, Omsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblast, Leningrad Oblast, and Primorye Territory visited the international expo Belagro. Negotiations were held on further advancement of bilateral trade and economic cooperation and manufacturing cooperation in the sphere of agribusiness.