OREANDA-NEWS. September 24, 2012. Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko has challenged the government to safeguard economic security of Belarus in light of Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization.

President Lukashenko made a statement to this effect on September 11 at the meeting with members of the government and the National Bank.

During the meeting they brought the president up to date on the country’s economic performance in January-August 2012 and proposed budget planning guidelines for 2013.

"Russia’s accession to the WTO will make SES (the Single Economic Space) markets an arena of tough competition. European and American manufacturers as well as Asian companies are hard at work exploring the markets of Kazakhstan and Russia. All in all, the situation in the global economy will get more complicated", Lukashenko said.

Lukashenko said he wanted to hear how the national economic security will be ensured and what will be done to secure export growth and a foreign trade surplus in 2012 and 2013.

"We must undoubtedly keep the foreign currency coming into the country for the sake of raising the gold and foreign exchange reserves and keeping the currency market stable", Lukashenko said.

Lukashenko also voiced concern over growing inventories and the decline in exports of the automotive industry, consumer goods, farm products, products of metallurgical and woodworking enterprises.

Speaking of exports, the president demanded that Belarus should be ready to look for new trade partners, if traditional partners have financial difficulties.

As previously reported, With Russia becoming a full-fledged WTO member, the average weighted customs tariff will gradually reduce by 3.5 percentage points: from 9.5% in 2012 to 7.6% in 2013, 6.9% in 2014 and around 6% in 2015.