Intensive contacts in Belarusian-Russian interregional cooperation

        Belarusian-Russian interregional cooperation involves intensive contacts at a high level. The statement was made by Stanislav Chepurnoi, Head of the Russia Regions Office of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, at the session of the permanent seminar on interregional cooperation in the Union State under the aegis of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia in the Russian city of Tver.
        Stanislav Chepurnoi remarked that Belarusian-Russian interregional cooperation traditionally embraces direct ties between administrative and territorial units of Belarus and Russia as well as ties between Belarus and regions of Russia.
        The official reminded that the legal base comprises 64 agreements on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation with 60 Russian regions. Apart from that, the interregional cooperation involves about 300 agreements signed between oblasts of Belarus, the city of Minsk and subjects of the Russian Federation as well as agreements between Belarusian districts, towns, and Russian municipal units.
In the last ten years Belarus-Russia trade rose by 4.5 times. Belarus is Russia’s sixth top trade partner after China, Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, and Italy. In 2012 Russia accounted for about half of Belarus’ foreign trade and over one third of Belarus’ export. In 2012 Belarus-Russia trade was close to $44 billion.