OREANDA-NEWS. On April 04, 2008, President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko gave an interview to Vietnamese journalists representing the Voice of Vietnam Radio and the Vietnam News Agency, reported the Official website http://president.gov.by.

The President of Belarus is scheduled to make an official visit to Vietnam soon. Therefore the Vietnamese journalists were interested in the agenda of the visit, the state of Belarusian-Vietnamese relations and planned measures to boost the bilateral trade and economic cooperation, and political and economic development of Belarus.

Belarus intends to boost trade with Vietnam, Alexander Lukashenko said. The level of trade as it is now does not meet today’s potential of Belarusian-Vietnamese relations. Therefore the main objective of the President’s visit to Vietnam is to ensure an increase in trade between the two states. “Unfortunately, having such traditions, brilliant political relations and relations between the peoples, Belarus and Vietnam do not have a fitting level of bilateral trade as yet. It’s necessary to step up the trade turnover, and do it promptly,” said the Head of State.

The Belarusian side intends to invite Vietnamese businessmen to Belarus so that they could do their business in Belarus and trade with the entire western world via Belarus, said Alexander Lukashenko. For this, Belarus is prepared to offer Vietnamese businessmen the most favourable conditions, he added.

Speaking about the economic situation in Belarus, the President said that if Belarus had not been hampered in its economic development, its economy would have been growing even faster than it is now. Some “try to pressurise Belarus by means of sanctions,” the President said. “These are futile attempts. We will find sales markets for our products,” he said.

In spite of some frictions, Alexander Lukashenko said, Belarus will soon establish normal relations with all countries. “We don’t want to quarrel with anyone: either with the East, or with the West. I think we’ll normalise our relations with the Americans, there are prospects for normalisation of relations with the European Union,” he said. “I see no problems in the relations between Belarus and the rest of the world,” Alexander Lukashenko added.