Translated material
Minsk does not lose hope
The prime ministers of Belarus and Russia will meet in the midst of the conflict
The next meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Russian-Belarusian Union State will take place on October 15 in Moscow. This was confirmed by Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky. The meeting will take place during a period of serious aggravation of relations between Russia and Belarus. The heads of government will discuss about 30 issues, most of which relate to economic cooperation. According to Mr. Sidorsky, one of the points of negotiations will be the draft Union budget for 2011: “This is a growing budget, even in post-crisis conditions.”So far, nothing has been said about whether the prime ministers intend to consider controversial issues of economic interaction, in particular the conditions for the supply of energy resources to Belarus. Minsk is concerned about the prospects for rising prices for Russian gas. Belarus is also dissatisfied with the fact that since the beginning of 2010, Moscow has introduced a 100 percent duty on oil supplies, exempting only those 6.3 million tons per year that Belarusians use for domestic consumption. This fall, the parties were supposed to reconsider the volume of duty-free oil supplies. Minsk was hoping for an expansion of benefits, but Moscow representatives have already made it clear that they could, on the contrary, reduce them due to the fact that Belarus began to import oil from Venezuela.
Recently, Minsk has been actively looking for new partners in the hope of compensating for losses from the reduction of Russian energy subsidies. Thus, Belarus is counting on expanding cooperation with China, where President Alexander Lukashenko is currently visiting. On the eve of his departure, it was reported that Minsk was counting on signing contracts worth $3.3 billion, and in the future it was assessing the possibility of attracting Chinese investment in the amount of $15 billion.