MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. Moscow and Minsk are forging integration despite the intensifying sanction pressure, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said during talks with his Belarusian counterpart Roman Golovchenko.
"Contrary to aggravating sanction pressure, Russia and Belarus are consistently strengthening union integration; we are jointly fulfilling the Guidelines on implementation of the Union State agreement for the next three years, approved by the Supreme State Council on January 29 in St. Petersburg," Mishustin said.
"The next record was set again in 2023. The record-high indicator of mutual trade turnover is 4.2 trillion Russian rubles ($45.2 bln) or almost 150 bln Belarusian rubles," the Russian Prime Minister said. There is an increase in "exports of Belarusian goods to international market with the use of Russian transport infrastructure," Mishustin noted. "Transit traffic surged more than twofold last year against 2022 - to 20 mln metric tons," he added.
In turn, Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko noted that the economies of Russia and Belarus demonstrate a significant margin of safety. "Our countries have shown serious resilience in these difficult conditions. The margin of safety that has been formed in our economies is quite significant," he said.
The Belarusian Prime Minister stated that both countries are working extremely well "both internally and externally, despite all the challenges that both Russia and Belarus face." He noted that both countries' GDPs have grown by the end of 2023. Golovchenko recalled that mutual trade in goods and services between Belarus and Russia last year exceeded $53 bln, rising by 6.5%.
"These positive trends continue this year. Based on the results of two months, we also see an increase in trade turnover, even compared to the successful similar period of last year," Golovchenko said.