On May 22, Ashgabat hosts a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Government. Belarus is represented by Prime Minister Alexander Turchin. The agenda includes more than 10 issues from various areas of the Commonwealth's life.

All of them are relevant for each CIS member country, ranging from transport corridors and logistics to the digital transformation of individual economic sectors. The signing of a number of final documents is expected.

The challenges facing one of the most prominent integration projects in Eurasia today will be discussed.

Cooperation between the CIS countries covers a wide range of areas: from global security and promoting peaceful conflict resolution to social protection and shared humanitarian projects. All this is done to ensure that people in the shared space of greater Eurasia can communicate, live, and be friends. However, today's realities are adjusting the vector of interaction within the Commonwealth. The CIS strives to enhance its role as a regional player by strengthening integration through economic projects. The logic is that only strong countries can create a strong union. Therefore, the main task is to work to strengthen the economic resilience, and today, the self-sufficiency, of the common economic space. How can this be achieved? Certain mechanisms of interaction have been tested in the Eurasian Union, and this experience can and should be applied to the Commonwealth.

Pavel Utyupin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus:

"The first area, from Belarus's perspective, is industrial cooperation. We are aware of the work being carried out within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) on financial support, the creation of trilateral projects, and the possibility of subsidies. We are therefore attempting to implement similar work within the Commonwealth of Independent States. This may be a little more challenging, but on the other hand, the scope for action is much broader. Transport and transport corridors are among the documents discussed today on the agenda: linking West-East and North-South transport corridors. Accordingly, infrastructure development is necessary in each individual country to increase capacity and speed."

The Intergovernmental Council is an opportunity to discuss bilateral cooperation.

On May 22, Belarusian Prime Minister Alexander Turchin met with Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedow. Among the projects that could strengthen our ties, assistance in modernizing the railway network is currently being developed (this is a major and important project for Turkmenistan, and Belarusian companies are invited to participate). There is interest in our agricultural technologies. A delegation from Turkmenistan will be welcome at Belagro. And to make travel shorter and more convenient, it has been proposed to resume direct air service, as it was in pre-COVID times.