MINSK, April 16. /TASS/. Russia and Belarus will hopefully reverse the adverse trend in trade, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Friday during talks with his Belarusian counterpart Roman Golovchenko.
"Our trade and economic cooperation is developing in general," Mishustin said. "It has already become not much but at least slightly better than it was during the pandemic peak period; I mean the contraction of mutual trade in the first instance," the prime minister said.
"It [the trade] totals about $29.5 bln. I hope this trend will be reversed in the near future and we will ramp up our trade turnover," he added.
Relevant ministers of the two countries maintain ongoing contacts and solve "all critical issues of interaction, the trade and economic ones in the first place," Mishustin said. "The integration interaction in the Union State [of Russia and Belarus - TASS] is of critical importance," he noted. "We are perfectly confident we will be able to scale it up [the trade turnover - TASS] independently and use opportunities of such interaction for the benefit of both sides to improve efficiency of our economies," the prime minister said.