ArmInfo. Armenia and Belarus are at trade-economy cooperation stage, which is being implemented according to a wide range of goods and services. "We do not amend bilateral claims and barriers", Igor Nazaruk, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to Armenia told ArmInfo's reporter.
However, the Belarusian Ambassador expressed concern about the drop of mutual trade. According to him, external factors influenced the decrease in volumes. "First of all, this is the world economic recession, change in prices for basic energy carriers - oil, the price of gas attached to it. Relatively speaking, these problems were "presented" to us from outside, "Nazaruk said.
He noted that Belarusian products, in particular tractor machinery, tire products, fiber, which is used in telecommunications, have a high demand in Armenia. However, both the Armenian and Belarusian sides do not fully use the available opportunities, the Ambassador added. In this context, Nazaruk referred to the work of the ECE, noting that as a supranational body the Eurasian Commission helps to promote and strengthen economic potentials within the framework of a unified industrial policy and a number of other issues that fall within the competence of the ECE. At the same time, the bottleneck in the cooperation with Armenia, the Ambassador of Belarus noted the complicated transport interaction due to objective geographical reasons. In this regard, I. Nazaruk stressed: "I am sure that these problems will be resolved in the near future, after the conclusion of the relevant Belarusian-Armenian agreement in this area."
According to Armenian National Statistics Service, in Jan-March 2017, the export of Armenian production to Belarus decreased for 22.5% till $961 thousand, with import growth by 25.6% to $5.8mln, which resulted foreign trade turnover extent for the reported period to amount $6.7 mln.