Belarus, Russia to harmonize anti-crisis plans - Belarusian premier

GORKI, February 5. /TASS/. The governments of Russia and Belarus intend to harmonize their anti-crisis plans aimed at halting negative trends in the national economies, Belarusian Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday. "The Russian government’s [anti-crisis] plan is of great interest to us because we intend to submit the Belarusian government’s action plan to our parliament within a month," Kobyakov said. "We have proposed and are very glad that you have agreed to carry out work over a plan and a program of coordinated actions for ensuring economic interaction between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus," the Belarusian premier said. The plan offers some serious measures, in particular, to use settlements between Russia and Belarus to a greater extent and also agree macro-economic policy," Kobyakov said. Russia-Belarus trade peaked in 2012 with $43 billion but fell to $37 billion now, the Belarusian premier said. Russia and Belarus need to understand the reasons for this decline, the Russian prime minister said, suggesting that the entire current agenda of bilateral relations should be discussed, including the Russia-Belarus Union State. "We’ll talk about Eurasian integration, the current situation in trade and I propose covering all the aspects of our relations," Medvedev said. The Russian premier proposed holding the next session of the Union State Cabinet of Ministers in the first half of 2015 in Russia. Read more