ST. PETERSBURG, December 21. /TASS/. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has stated the importance of building cooperation between the EAEU and third countries.

"The issues on the agenda of today’s meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council are of an exclusively practical nature. It is important to develop approaches to building trade and economic cooperation with third countries for the coming five years," he told a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in a narrow format.

According to Lukashenko, Minsk fully supports the search for new partners from among the states of the global majority, moving to those regions of the world where the EAEU nations are respected and expected.

He said an important factor of economic growth in the countries of the association is the intensification of tourism cooperation.

"To this end, we will approve the concept of its development today. We also need to decide on the draft budget of the union for 2026," he said. "Besides the issues on the agenda at the previous meeting in Minsk, we agreed today to consider the results of implementation of strategic directions for the development of the Eurasian Economic Integration until 2025."

In 2025, Belarus presides over the EAEU, including the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council.