OREANDA-NEWS. February 16, 2011. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatens to terminate cooperation with Unimilk if it fails to fulfill its commitments, news service reported from a session on dairy sector.

“If you fail to perform my instructions in the first quarter, you will no longer work on the Belarusian market,” Lukashenko told senior executives of the French-Russian company Danone-Unimilk.

According to Lukashenko, Unimilk deals only with processing and exports of drinking milk, which is basically export of raw products. “We let them come to our dairy market, gave access to our resources on most favorable terms. However, I had warned against exporting products with low added value. Moreover, the company had pledged to set up modern milk-processing facilities and develop its own raw materials base. The promise has not been met yet,” the president said.

“I am indignant. You forgot that you work in Belarus, not in Russia. Corruption, carved up profits, pressure, deals beyond my instructions are unacceptable,” Lukashenko said. “I know everything; I even know what you are thinking about, I know how you shared the dividends, how much money your representatives in Belarus have received and even how you spent the money. I know everything,” he said.

As was reported previously, Russian Unimilk and Minsk Region administration signed an investment agreement to create a cluster to make cheese and canned milk products. The deal was inked during the Belarus Investment Forum in Frankfurt am Main.

The deal was signed by Deputy Chairman of Minsk Region administration Alexander Yermak and Unimilk General Director Andrei Beskhmelnitsky.

It is planned to establish the largest export-oriented cluster in Belarus making cheese and canned milk products on the basis of OJSC Slootsk cheese factory and OJSC Slootsk brewery, with investments estimated at 80 million euros by 2017.

The cluster will have a capacity of up to 37,000 tonnes of cheese and 200 million cans of dairy products annually. Exports to the CIS will make up about 90% of the output.

Unimilk is the second-largest producer of dairy products in Russia.