Belarus, Poland mulling over joint projects in green economy

Belarus' Brest and Poland's Biala Podlaska are looking into launching joint projects in green economy under the cross-border cooperation program, Brest First Vice Mayor Vadim Kravchuk.

Brest and Biala Podlaska are implementing several joint projects in line with the cross-border cooperation program Poland-Belarus-Ukraine for 2014-2020. One of the projects is aimed at developing transport infrastructure. The parties received a grant of over €2 million from the European Union. Under the project, two circular intersections were built on the M1/E30 international motorway in Biala Podlaska. A delegation from Brest attended a ceremony to commission the intersections.

“During a meeting with representatives of the Biala Podlaska administration, we considered promising cooperation areas and plans for joint projects under the Poland-Belarus-Ukraine program for 2021-2027,” Vadim Kravchuk said. “We discussed efforts to switch to electric public transport and energy saving projects for social facilities. Another cooperation area is wastewater treatment and its further use. These are our areas of mutual interest,” he added. The Belarusian and the Polish cities are twin towns. They closely cooperate in social affairs and economy.

For its part, under the cross-border cooperation program, Brest is working on an automated traffic control system. The system is meant to route traffic in a more effective way and prevent traffic jams. Smart traffic lights were installed at the busiest intersections and their surface outfitted with built-in sensors that will transfer data to special controllers.

“This will allow continuous traffic flow, the so called green wave. We will be able to reduce traffic on the main roads of the city and redirect traffic flows. We are currently calibrating and testing the system. The smart system will become operational in the first quarter of 2021,” Vadim Kravchuk said.