MINSK, June 21 (BelTA) — Belarusian Economy Minister Aleksandr Chervyakov met with Russian Economic Development Minister Maksim Reshetnikov after a session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council. The sides discussed in detail the progress in achieving the Union State programs, directions to intensify mutual trade and other issues, the press service of the Ministry of Economy told BelTA.

According to Aleksandr Chervyakov, increasing bilateral shipments of materials, components and ready-made products to replace lost imports from hostile countries will help maintain the stability of the Belarusian and Russian economy under current conditions. .

Aleksandr Chervyakov said: “Today we see that our economies are slowing down. The slowdown is mainly due to structural transformations: redirection of export shipments to markets in friendly countries, shift to new components, remodeling of logistics corridors and changes in the structure of foreign currency payments. All of this takes time. At the same time, many companies increase their production after doing this work in advance. This is especially true for machine and instrument building industries, electronics, food industry and others. These products are in great demand in the Russian market. There is no doubt that it is now necessary to intensify these efforts to fill the vacant niches and increase exports. An ambitious task the government is working on is to increase shipments to Russia by more than 30% from 2021.”

Another important item on the agenda was the discussion on the progress made in the implementation of a Union state program on macro-policy. The economic agencies of the two countries coordinate the program.

Aleksandr Chervyakov and Maksim Reshetnikov paid special attention to energizing the interaction of information in a number of areas: economic news on a regular basis, the formation of projections of the social and economic development of Belarus and of Russia, an algorithm for the development of the development forecast for the State of the Union of Belarus and Russia. These three vectors will be reflected in a corresponding draft intergovernmental agreement, which should be signed by December.

During discussions on approaches to the development of the Union State Development Forecast, Aleksandr Chervyakov and Maksim Reshetnikov paid attention to the development and approval of commodity lists for joint trade balance sheets .

In turn, Maksim Reshetnikov mentioned that it was necessary to work out the second integration package. For now, the parties must draw up a roadmap aimed at bringing the Belarusian and Russian economy closer together.

The ministers agreed to organize a joint college at the end of the year. By then, countries will have developed official forecasts of social and economic development. The development of measures to achieve the predictions will be discussed during the session.