Lukashenko, Putin in favor of securing positive trends in Belarus-Russia trade

Vladimir Putin started the conversation by saying: “Thank you for coming. Just like we agreed. We agreed about it even before another loop…”

“Another surge of emotions,” Aleksandr Lukashenko continued the line of thought.

“Yes, a surge of emotions. We have something to discuss without these events. I mean Russia remained Belarus' key trade and economic partner in Q1 2021. We saw a considerable increase in trade – 18.4%. It is a good trend. It is important to preserve it and keep the governments working actively,” the Russian leader continued.

Vladimir Putin noted that today Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin is in Belarus to participate in a session of the CIS Heads of Government Council, he had contacts with his counterparts over there. “He called me today, told me how work was going on,” the Russian president said.

Vladimir Putin remarked that the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant will be commissioned in June. “It is also another good example of our cooperation. There are good positive trends in other areas. All of it will surely be in the center of our attention,” he stated.

The Russian president noted that work on matters concerning the development of the Union State of Belarus and Russia continued as well. “We do it bearing in mind the need to secure interests of both Belarus and Russia. We are moving in this direction. I am convinced the work already produces concrete results for our citizens. We just have to take persistent steps, without hurrying it, without rushing ahead. We should act stage by stage while securing our interests. Each side determines what its interests are,” he stressed.

The Belarus president noted that indeed a lot had been talked about this meeting. “Unexpectedly even for me. They said we meet very often and the rest… But it is our plan. We declared it back in late 2020. We said we would gradually discuss those matters as you correctly said,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “If we get stuck at some issue and cannot deal with it without specialists, we pass it on to specialists, they prepare it for us. We meet, we move again. The key thing is that we move forward. You've correctly mentioned trade growth. We now calculate virtually every bit of a percent. We see that this year Belarus-Russia trade will exceed the pre-COVID level. We have a good pace in this regard.”

Aleksandr Lukashenko stated that Belarus' GDP growth rate is virtually on par with Russia's. “Do you know they went as far as to predict some stagnation in Belarus. The Russian economy grows. Naturally our economy moves well because it is tied to Russia. But there are always those, who want to make problems for us. You know about them,” he said.