Lukashenko hoping for gas price of $105-110 per thousand cubic meters
MINSK. Dec 5 (Interfax) - A price of gas of $105-110 per thousand cubic meters would be acceptable, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said, according to the publication Belarus Today.
"How can we compete with our machine-building equipment if we're receiving natural gas at three to five times the prices that Russian companies are paying? There doesn't even need to be the same price as in Russia. Let there be, say, $100 for them, and $105-110 for us [per thousand cubic meters, including transport costs]," Lukashenko told the country's parliament on Thursday, according to the publication Belarus Today.
Such a price would allow Belarusian companies to compete with Russian producers on equal terms, he said. "The conditions should be good for competition. Our industrial goods shouldn't be getting squeezed in Russia," Lukashenko said.
"We need just one thing: equal conditions for our economic agents. If companies that produce agricultural equipment, automobiles, and so on are working in Smolensk, Bryansk, Moscow, and Siberia, they [and Belarusian companies] should be working under equal conditions," he said.