Moscow awaiting Minsk's new industrial cooperation offers - Russian Ambassador Babich
ZHODINO (Minsk region). March 12 (Interfax) - Russia is waiting for Belarus to put forth new proposals regarding industrial cooperation projects, Russian Ambassador in Minsk Mikhail Babich said.
"I would like his successors [of former Belarussian Deputy Prime Minister and Minsk's current Ambassador to Russia Vladimir Semashko] to be just as active in that respect [suggesting integration projects in industry] and look at the prospect of individual Belarussian enterprises in order to formulate proposals that can be successfully implemented within the Union State," Babich told reporters during a visit to BelAZ enterprise in Zhodino on Tuesday.
Earlier proposed projects "were not implemented for a number of reasons; as a rule, for reasons that were not economic," he said.
"We would like to come back to the Union State's well-thought-out industrial policy. In this case, these and other projects will have a worthy future," Babich said.
BelAZ is a successful example of well-considered cooperation between this enterprise and Russian companies, he said. Russia is a priority market for BelAZ, which exported nearly 60% ($600 million) of its products to Russia in 2018, Babich said.
"BelAZ pursues a well-planned policy - not only has it been increasing the sale of its products in the Russian Federation, but it has also been actively interacting with Russian suppliers of component parts, encouraging them to design new products," he said.
"We see a guarantee of further cooperation, and vast prospects for this cooperation. On the whole, the broadening of production at BeAZ will spur the development of Russian enterprises," he said.
Belarus and Russia had earlier considered the possibility of implementing five industrial cooperation projects, including merging MAZ and KamAZ into the Rosbelavto holding, the integration of Belarus's Integral and the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant with structures of Rostec, including the possible integration of Belarussian optoelectronics design company Peleng with Roscosmos and Grodno Azot with EuroChem or Gazprom.