OREANDA-NEWS. May 18, 2010. Belarusian and Russian companies should focus on the development of industrial cooperation, Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky told at the meeting with the Kurgan Oblast Governor Oleg Bogomolov, reported the Official website government.by.

 “We have recently seen many companies in the Russian Federation abandon such concept as industrial cooperation. Today we have agreed that industrial cooperation between Belarusian and Russian companies, creation of jobs and promotion of potential of companies through such cooperation is the basis for the development of our economies, especially in such a complex sector as mechanical engineering,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

According to him, even if the government provides subsidies or any other kind of support, these are only temporary measures, while systematic industrial cooperation will yield tangible results.

“Unfortunately, many think today that industrial cooperation is not the main thing in the work of Belarusian-Russian companies. But it is only industrial cooperation that can help make use of innovations to raise our companies to a high level,” the Prime Minister said.

As an example he cited the Belarusian tractor which is made from Russian spare parts at 70%. “Today we see an economic strategy taking shape in Russia which is aimed at discouraging the regions from buying the Belarusian equipment made as part of industrial cooperation programs. We do not understand this. We need to promote industrial cooperation,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

Oleg Bogomolov supported Sergei Sidorsky in this issue. “Considering the groundwork we have already laid down, it makes no sense to create joint facilities which would produce, for example, 50 MTZ tractors. I think this is not right. We need to develop industrial cooperation and examine the ways of substituting the import of spare parts,” he said.

Belarus and the Kurgan Oblast of the Russian Federation have signed a memorandum on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation as well as a protocol of actions to be taken in 2010-2011 to promote cooperation.

The document was signed by Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky and Kurgan Oblast Governor Oleg Bogomolov.

“We have generally sketched out our work for the near future – 2010-2011,” said Sergei Sidorsky. In his words, the memorandum has framework qualities while the protocol is filled with concrete projects that are supposed to be implemented in Belarus and the Kurgan Oblast within two years. Primarily those are mechanical engineering projects. “There are good advances in agricultural machinery area, excellent advances in automobile engineering,” explained Sergei Sidorsky.

During the present visit of the Kurgan Oblast delegation to Belarus other matters of cooperation were considered as well. In particular, the Russian region is interested in the Belarusian greenhouse industry. “Belarus is ready to transfer both the technologies and the experience that we have in this area to Kurgan Oblast agricultural companies,” said the Prime Minister of Belarus.

The sides have also reached agreements regarding the development of relations in sports, tourism, youth policy, cultural programs.

In 2010 Belarus and the Kurgan Oblast of the Russian Federation plan to recover the trade figures that were registered in 2008, Sergei Sidorsky told media after meeting with Oleg Bogomolov.

“We expect we will be able to considerably boost the trade turnover with the Kurgan Oblast. At present we believe it is absolutely non-existent,” said Sergei Sidorsky.

“In 2010 we plan to return to the trade figures that we had in 2008. Preconditions are available. In Q1 2010 we virtually tripled the trade figures that we had in the same period of the complicated year of 2009,” noted the Prime Minister. He attributed the improvement mainly to supplies of Belarusian mechanical engineering machines, special vehicles to the Kurgan Oblast and supplies of products, which are used in mechanical engineering, back to Belarus.

Oleg Bogomolov is also confident that Belarus and the Kurgan Oblast will be able to boost trade figures. In his words, several Kurgan Oblast companies are interested in stepping up contacts with Belarusian companies. Some of them already operate on the Belarusian market, namely the Shchadrinsk automobile aggregates plant, the Kataisk pump plant and others.

“We are not starting out from scratch. We are resuming the relations that have been built in the recent years. Today I have seen the country that has advanced considerably in many areas and is implementing what we have yet to in our region,” said Oleg Bogomolov.

Belarus expects Russia to lift restrictive measures from Belarusian products, Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky told media.

“All of us are recovering from the financial crisis,” said Sergei Sidorsky. In January-March 2010 the Russian economy grew by 6% while the Belarusian economy expanded by 6%. It means that “we can scrap many measures that the governments used to protect their markets as part of anticrisis programs,” said Sergei Sidorsky.

At present some restrictions on supplies of Belarusian products to Russia are in place. “I think that such contacts between us, the understanding of manufacturing cooperation matters, of mutual supplies to the commodity markets of Belarus and Russia should remove all the barriers that existed throughout 2009. At least we expect it to happen,” said the Prime Minister of Belarus.

According to Sergei Sidorsky, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Belarus also confirmed that there are such trends. “We can do our best to remove the temporary measures soon with regard to manufacturing cooperation between our enterprises on the markets of Russia and Belarus. I asked the Governor of the Kurgan Oblast to deliver the view to the Russian leadership in order to move the development of the two economies,” said the Prime Minister.