New integration package of Russia-Belarus Union State for 2024-2026 to be approved soon - Russian ambassador

MINSK. Jan 9 (Interfax) - The Russian-Belarusian Union State is experiencing an economic boom, and a new integration package for 2024-2026 will be approved soon, Russian Ambassador in Minsk Boris Gryzlov said on December 31.

"We have achieved a lot in the outgoing year. The large-scale three-year-long work to implement 28 union programs is nearing completion. The new integration package for 2024-2026 will be approved soon. It will now include 120 events covering a much wider range of cooperation tracks. The special emphasis will be placed on the strengthening of cultural and humanitarian ties," the press service for the Russian Embassy in Belarus quoted Gryzlov as saying.

"The Union State has remained a true stronghold of stability amid increasing turbulence all over the entire Western world. None of 'prophesies' of Western skeptics, critics and detractors who predicted us in a crisis and decline came true," Gryzlov said.

"Everything ended up in exactly the opposite. While the collective West is trying to scrape up even a few tenths of a percent of GDP, the economies of Russia and Belarus are showing the confident growth of 3.5%, and this is happening under sanctions and amid the evident drawdown of the global markets," he said.

Unlike in the crucial year of 2022, the most important thing is not minimizing the damage, but planning for the long term with a focus on the development of innovative productions and the implementation of large-scale breakthrough projects with a powerful scientific and technical basis, he said. The Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, which was put into operation, is a striking example of it, he said.

"A soft, but extremely important shift in the development paradigm became the result of our working together in the outgoing year. We switched from import substitution to the creation of the new economy of the Union State. Russia and Belarus have not tried to gain on anybody for a long time, on the contrary, we're setting new global standards in many industries. Tasks are becoming more ambitious, and cooperation horizons are constantly expanding," Gryzlov said.