Belarus to sign agreement with Russia on common industrial policy in October - ambassador

MINSK. Sept 26 (Interfax) - Belarus plans to sign an intergovernmental agreement with Russia in October on a common industrial policy and an agreement on tracking manufacturing processes, the country's ambassador to Russia, Dmitry Krutoi said.

"In October we plan to finally sign an intergovernmental agreement on the principles of a common industrial policy and, more importantly, an agreement on tracking manufacturing processes, so that the two countries acknowledge manufacturing processes for key, foremost machine-building, enterprises," Krutoi said on state TV channel Belarus 1.

The signing of the agreements "would open access to the Belarusian market for Russian companies and the Russian market for Belarusian ones, foremost subsidy programs on the federal and regional levels," he said.

He also said that, given the deepening of economic cooperation between the two countries amid western sanctions, Belarus will increase exports to Russia by a third to $8 billion.

"The challenge of redirecting the exports of Belarusian businesses from the Ukrainian and European markets to Russia is now being actively tackled. In the first eight months, we added 28% for goods and 22% for services. [...] By the end of the year, we will successfully achieve the objective of increasing exports to the Russian Federation from $6 billion to $8 billion," Krutoi said.