Belarus and St. Petersburg sign road map for 2023-2025

At a meeting with St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko told about the construction of ports for Belarusian goods in Bronka and Murmansk, BelTA informs.

"We are now carrying out a lot of work, you know, on the formation of logistics through your city. We are building a logistics infrastructure and ports in your city and in Murmansk. But we already have a working port in Bronka. We are going to expand it. We have no questions here", - said the head of the state.

"We are seriously developing cooperation with St. Petersburg," added the Belarusian leader.

A project to develop container traffic through the port of Bronka is being implemented in St. Petersburg. About 7 million tons of Belarusian cargoes are planned to be redirected through the ports of the city. Total capacity of Bronka will exceed 20 million tons of cargo per year (at present almost 10 million tons). Besides, there are projects on modernization of railroads leading to the port.

As reported earlier this year, at a meeting on the export of Belarusian goods, President demanded to rush the construction of Belarusian ports in Russia. He noted that due to the attempts to strangle Belarus with sanctions last year, the existing logistics were disrupted. We had to look for new logistic ways. "We will have to discuss these issues as well. At least, I believe that all the issues that you have asked me to resolve at the level of the President of the Russian Federation in order to open the ports for us have been resolved. The only thing that is left is to start loading cargo at these ports. Although we have already begun to load something. We need to build these ports faster, to bring them to a certain level and to trade through our own ports.

Earlier, in August 2022, the head of state held a meeting on the creation of port facilities for the export of Belarusian goods. They touched upon the cost and the terms of construction, the payback period and the possible risks. "The port should be built quickly and with minimal costs," stressed Alexander Lukashenko.

According to the President, Belarus now has a good chance to create its own port infrastructure. "This is what we've been dreaming about for a long time. The Russian Federation has opened doors for us at all levels. At least, there are no obstacles from the President of Russia, with whom I have been nBelarus and St. Petersburg are now aimed at the highest horizons. This was stated by Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko after a meeting with St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov.

The negotiations were first held in the narrow circle and then the main work benchmarks were discussed at the Council of Business Cooperation. The partners are sure that nowadays in the situation of the hostile economic pressure it is necessary to unite scientific, industrial and personnel resources to ensure import independence.

Following the results of the council meeting a road map till 2026 was signed. It specifies a list of new projects including those in science and pharmaceutics. As for import substitution, Belarus offers its own fire-fighting equipment. Work has already begun, so far we are talking about five machines, but there is a request for even more sophisticated products, for example, high altitude aerial ladders.

"Many Belarusian manufacturers signed new contracts literally on the eve of our meeting to supply large buses of Minsk Automobile Plant to St. Petersburg, several dozen trolleybuses which will certainly decorate the beautiful city on the Neva," - said Roman Golovchenko.

Roman Golovchenko, Prime Minister of Belarus:

“In the first month of this year we have taken a high and dynamic bar for our commodity turnover. If in real terms it has increased by almost 40% for two months (this trend is also observed at the end of three months), in industry, if we take only this area, the turnover has increased by 2.1 times. Of course, I am sure that these figures will increase from month to month, and this should give us the opportunity to exceed the bar that was set last year.

Alexander Beglov, Governor of St. Petersburg:

We have reached a level in the industry where there is no competition anymore, but complementing each other. What is produced in Russia today is in demand in the Republic of Belarus, and what is produced in the Republic is in demand in St. Petersburg and Russia. This cooperation is the most important thing that we have managed to achieve in two years. This example of joint work shows that we are not only partners, but really fraternal nations that help each other.”