The sixth meeting of the working group on cooperation between the Republic of Belarus and the Komi Republic of Russia was held in Grodno, BelTA has learned.
"Such meetings convinced me that there are no uninteresting regions. There are regions that we know little about. Our task as government bodies is to ensure that our people and business communities are aware of each other's capabilities. In the wake of a visit of a fairly representative delegation of Grodno Oblast to the Komi Republic last year, our exports rose by 1.5 times. We see that when we learn more about each other, our trade increases. We not only find markets for our products. We establish mutually beneficial cooperation, because we have something to share and there is experience that we can adopt," Grodno Oblast Governor Vladimir Karanik said after the meeting.
The governor added: "The Komi Republic is no exception in this regard. The cooperation embraces forest management, reforestation, processing. This is the possibility for us to supply our engineering products and cooperate in humanitarian matters. There are quite a lot of avenues where we can cooperate. But the most important thing is that with each meeting we see the result, and each time the result becomes more tangible."
"Despite the post-pandemic legacy, our trade is on growth track, both in terms of imports and exports from the Republic of Belarus to the Komi Republic and vice versa. Today we have opened new chapters in our cooperation. For example, we are developing new designs of prefabricated homes for doctors and teachers living in hard-to-reach settlements in Komi. They are made of local durable materials. All our municipal and district boiler houses have switched to biofuel, which was news for our colleagues from Grodno. Because today they are looking for markets for locally produced biofuel ," the head of the Komi Republic Vladimir Uyba said.
He stressed that it is important for Komi to replace imports of logging machines and technologies with Belarusian engineering goods. “For us, as a republic with a very high percentage of timber processing (timber accounts for more than 30% of the local economy), it is extremely important to switch to logging equipment from the Republic of Belarus. Until now, we imported all the equipment from the now unfriendly countries. It is crucial for us that this industry works seamlessly.”
Vladimir Uyba also added that the meeting also focused on the agricultural industry: "Today we have a very large amount of land that has not yet been put into circulation. In this regard, both the Republic of Belarus in general and Grodno Oblast in particular are an example for us. There is not a single square meter of unused land here."
The parties also reached an agreement to exchange students, student teams, to continue cultural exchange and promote the patriotic movement. For example, young people from Grodno were invited to take part in the reenactment of the battles of the Great Patriotic War which will be held in the Komi Republic in February.
At the end of the meeting the parties signed a protocol of the joint meeting of the working group on cooperation between the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Komi of the Russian Federation.