Belarus, Armenia set to boost bilateral trade
By Andrei Fomin

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 3, 2005 Tuesday

MINSK, May 3 — Belarussian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky and his
Armenian counterpart Andranik Margaryan called for boosting bilateral
trade by several times.

The premiers, at their meeting in the Belarussian capital on Tuesday,
named car-making and agriculture as the most promising fields of
cooperation.

“Belarussian companies are aimed at active work at foreign markets.”
Last year alone, the republic boosted its exports by more than 30
percent as its foreign trade turnover reached over 30 billion dollars,
Sidorsky said.

Belarus is ready to supply to Armenia state-of-the-art technologies
and developments, he added.

In 2004, Belarus invested some six billion dollars in technical
upgrades at domestic companies, and is ready to share part of its
innovations with Armenia. Car-making and agriculture are the most
promising fields in such cooperation.

In Sidorsky’s view, the forms of trade and economic cooperation
with Armenia should be the same as with Russia, Belarus’ closest
trade partner.

“There /in the Russian Federation/ we set up companies which service
centers; we work for the development of the Russian economy; while
Russians work similarly in Belarus,” the Belarussian premier said.

According to Margaryan, the issue of stepping up trade and economic
cooperation with Belarus was discussed at a meeting with Armenian
business people on Tuesday. The target for the near future is to
achieve a 100-million-dollar trade turnover, and then increase it to
500 million dollars.

Last year, two-way trade was 10.8 million dollars. It increased 2.5
times this year.