The working meeting of the Governor of with the deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Russia and Belarus

The deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia came to Smolensk with a working visit during which a meeting of the Budget and Finance Commission of the Parliamentary Assembly was held in the building of the Administration of Smolensk region.

Before the meeting, Governor Alexey Ostrovskiy held a meeting with the chairman of the Budget and Finance Commission of the Parliamentary Assembly Vladislav Reznik, his colleagues – the members of the Parliamentary Assembly and the Permanent Committee of the Union State. During the meeting, the parties discussed the state and prospects of the cooperation of Smolensk region and the Republic of Belarus.

"We gladly accepted the initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly to hold a meeting of your Commission here in Smolensk. For us, the Administration of the region, the creation of the Union State, as well as the integration processes that are taking place and, I'm sure, will continue, are not declarative statements, - said Alexey Ostrovskiy. - For us, it is a matter of daily life. We can evaluate in practice these or those integration processes, as well as their absence. For us, a lot of things that are happening in the bilateral relations have both positive and often negative effect. At the same time, of course, it is so good that the various economic conflicts caused by different understanding of national interests of our states have gone.

At the same time, dear colleagues, the course that the President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko is carrying out regarding the protection of the national interests in terms of import replacement program greatly hurts the economy of Smolensk region. But we are grateful to your President for his willingness to hear our concerns about this. Not long ago, on behalf of the Administration of the region I brought up these issues at the meeting with President Lukashenko. And we are grateful to the President of your Republic for the corresponding orders regarding which we went to Minsk to have a meeting with the Industry Minister of the Republic, with the First Vice-Prime Minister, and the Administration of the region received guarantees that the two biggest Auto-Aggregate Plants – in Roslavl and in Smolensk - will have the same volume of orders from the Belarus.

We will be happy see the Belarusian investors in Smolensk region to develop the agricultural sector of our region. We are looking forward to it, but, unfortunately, we have had no practical effect from our appeals to the Belarusian side. Though we would appreciate the production capacity of our Belarusian partners, and I hope that you, as parliamentarians, will assist us. There are many other issues that I would like to discuss with you ".

In their turn, the Belarusian colleagues stressed the need to find new forms of close mutually beneficial cooperation between Smolensk region and the regions of Belarus. In particular, there are good prospects for setting up joint ventures that could combine the expertise and advanced technology of the both countries and produce competitive products. The Belarusian partners also raised the subject of joint organization of primary processing of agricultural products and other questions interesting for the both sides. Fortunately, that trade turnover with our fraternal brotherly Belarus is naturally growing.