OREANDA-NEWS. October 24, 2008. Effectively performing real production sector can resist the financial crisis, First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko said at the 34th session of the CIS Electric Energy Council in Minsk, reported the Official website www.government.by.

“The CIS countries should work together to increase the efficiency of the power engineering industry, which will allow minimize the consequences of the ongoing financial crisis,” he said. It is imperative that we preserve the decade-long partnership relations between the energy systems of the CIS countries, Vladimir Semashko added.

We also need to tackle simultaneously some complex tasks. These are the structural modernisation and reformation of national energy systems, ensuring their stable synchronous performance in the CIS dimension. We also need to step up efforts to organise the transnational energy system uniting the systems of the CIS, Baltic and other European states with the systems of Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Iran and in the future China.

Vladimir Semashko noted that Belarus needs energy resources to ensure its GDP growth. The country produces 85% of electrical energy from natural gas. In this respect Belarus places a key emphasis on increasing the energy efficiency of the economy. The energy security concept of the Republic of Belarus has been passed and is operational.

The First Vice-Premier said that in Bishkek on October 10 the CIS Heads of State urged the CIS Heads of Government to approve the CIS economic development strategy. The CIS leaders decided upon making the energy issue a top-priority of the cooperation in 2009. They commissioned their governments to elaborate proposals for the coordinated energy policy. In this respect the CIS Electric Energy Council is due to develop a set of proposals as soon as possible to implement the goals.

Vladimir Semashko is confident that the experience and potential of the CIS Electric Energy Council will help accomplish these tasks.