STRELNA, January 29. /TASS/. Belarus and Russia have reached an understanding on increasing the throughput capacity of the Oktyabrskaya Railroad going to St. Petersburg for the purpose of scaling up volumes of Belarusian cargoes moved for transshipment to Russian ports, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] and I discussed this problem about three months ago and decided that the Oktyabrskaya Railroad should work more intensively going towards St. Petersburg," Lukashenko said.

"We need a little money and a little effort at the initial stage to restore junctions" to increase deliveries by train to St. Petersburg ports, the Belarusian President said. "These junctions were there but when Ukraine stepped back from cargo transiting in the direction of St. Petersburg, the situation was what it was. We will therefore in any case need - it is important for Russia and for Belarus - to restore the cargo traffic in this direction," Lukashenko said.

The Belarusian leader urged the governments of the two countries to be more active in implementing agreements already reached, including in the sphere of the logistics to carry Belarusian export cargoes via Russian ports. "Millions, millions, tens of millions of metric tons of Belarusian cargoes were redirected from Baltic ports of the Baltic States to St. Petersburg, Murmansk, and Black Sea ports," Lukashenko noted. "Nevertheless, problems [in logistics] do exist," he added.