STRELNA, January 29. /TASS/. Belarus and Russia have made meaningful progress in the area of import substitution, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

"The key task in the industrial sector is to step up cooperation in import substitution. Much has been done here as we understand much of what we had no idea of only two years ago," he said.

In November 2022, Minsk and Moscow concluded an agreement on providing a loan worth 105 bln rubles to the Belarusian side to be spent on the implementation of projects in the area of import substitution amid Western sanctions. The projects are implemented in Belarus in cooperation with the Russian side. Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Pyotr Pakhomchik said that the sides have greenlighted 27 import substitution projects by now. By November 2023, loan agreements with banks had been concluded on 13 projects, with contracts on equipment supplies signed. The first five projects are expected to be completed in 2025.