OREANDA-NEWS. March 24, 2009. Belarus is interested in more active work of Russian capital in the country, Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky noted during his meeting with Vice Premier - Finance Minister of Russia Alexei Kudrin, reported the Official website www.government.by.

According to Sergei Sidorsky, the Governments of Belarus and Russia are considering the participation of Russian investors in projects of Belarusian food-processing and dairy branches. “Yesterday’s meeting of the presidents of Belarus and Russia has confirmed the progress in the energy area including the construction of the Belarusian nuclear and power plant. At the same time, Russian companies are studying Belarus’ proposals dealing with the cooperation in petrochemical branch,” Sergei Sidorsky noted.

According to Sergei Sidorsky, the cooperation of both the countries in the banking area is too important as well. He reminded that Belarus has already signed cooperation agreements with Vneshtorgbank and Sberbank. The same agreements are expected to be signed with other financial institutions of the Russian Federation. Belarus intends to continue working with the biggest Russian banks. In turn, they express readiness to grant loans for the Belarusian economy.
All that is very important during the global financial crisis.

According to Sergei Sidorsky, the implementation of the plan of actions of Belarus and Russia to minimize consequences of the global financial crisis gives some results. Recently, working groups of the two countries have done a lot to settle the problems of the bilateral cooperation. For instance, Belarus is finishing the joint work with the Russian Ministry of Economic

Development to adjust the provisions contained in the anti-crisis plan. “The main thing is that economic entities of Belarus and Russia should have equal access to the markets of both the countries. The presidents of Belarus and Russia discussed it yesterday,” Sergei Sidorsky said. According to him, it is necessary to make the work of the ministries of both the countries closer to settle all the problems. It concerns the work of the customs, transport and economic governmental departments.

Sergei Sidorsky noted that recently Belarus and Russia have made progress in developing the cooperation ties. For instance, 60% of the trade between Belarus and St. Petersburg are cooperative deliveries. “I believe that during the global financial crises it is necessary to take the measures to develop new enterprises and new technologies,” the Belarusian Prime Minister underscored.

Russia will continue providing credit support to Belarus, Finance Minister of Russia Aleksei Kudrin said as he met with Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky. Aleksei Kudrin said that the development of Russia’s budget and finance long-term stability concept is underway. “The resources, we have stored up, are currently in the budget and non-budgetary funds, allocated to support the economic agents of Russia as well as neighboring countries, and not only Belarus,” he said.

The Finance Minister of Russia added: “We have recently signed the agreement with Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. We are setting up an anti-crisis fund within the EurAsEC. The Russian side will put US7.5 billion in it”.

According to Aleksei Kudrin, the Russian resources will be also put in the anti-crisis measures undertaken by the collective efforts including the Group of Twenty. Russia is ready to support and lend its major partners, with Belarus among them. Since late 2007 Russia has lent Belarus US 3 billion on the most preferential terms: for 15 years with a five-year deferment on the principal debt.

“Our potential, our resources allow us to overcome the crisis, become stronger and, with new economy and new possibilities, return loans,” he said and added that, as a rule, the international organizations provide loans during the crisis on the toughest conditions in the tax, tariff and salary policy. Russia does not lay down such requirements.