EAEU Intergovernmental Council to be held in St. Petersburg today

By Daria Belousova-Petrovskaya: The EAEU Intergovernmental Council will be held in St. Petersburg today. The Prime Ministers of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia will discuss the most important issues of the Eurasian Economic Union, including the digital development of the EAEU countries, cooperation in energy and transport, industrial cooperation and customs cooperation.

This year, the Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasian Economic Union is meeting for the second time. The first one was held in Almaty in February.

About 20 important issues are on the agenda. One of them is the creation of a unified system for the transit of goods across the customs territory of the EAEU. All products must be marked with a special identification system. All information about them is entered in a single system. This will allow them to trace their movement, and consequently, will ensure equal conditions for competition, improve the quality of goods, help combat the illicit market and counterfeit goods, and make the system of transferring and distributing import customs duties between the budgets of the EAEU countries transparent. Another important task that faces the union today is the development of the digital economy. This includes e-commerce, the introduction of IT-technologies in transport, industry, and customs.

After the meeting, a bilateral meeting of the Prime Ministers of Belarus and Russia, Andrei Kobyakov and Dmitry Medvedev, is expected to take place.