Thursday, 19 May 2011
Tigran Sargsyan: “Political relationship with Belarus is on a very high level”
Attended by the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan-led government delegation, the CIS Council of Member-State Heads of Government met today in Minsk, capital of the Republic of Belarus.
The heads of government posed for a protocol photography ahead of the sitting. First, the council met in a narrow format as followed by a plenary session.
A major item of the agenda was the draft arrangement on free trade zone establishment. In the wake of the meeting, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan told journalists that the country representatives had introduced the standpoints of respective governments specifying the existing problems and picking out the ones subject to further discussion by experts. As a whole, the paper was taken as a basis for further consideration. Its ideology was said to be acceptable to all member-governments, with some technical matters left for finalization, including the restrictions on customs payments.
As Tigran Sargsyan advised, it had been decided to call another meeting involving the vice-premiers in order to finalize the outstanding issues. “At this point, Armenia has no objections whatsoever concerning the draft and we would have signed it even today, but in view of the fact that the document needs to be signed on the basis of a consensus, a group of member-States suggested holding extra discussions in anticipation of its signing at the next Council sitting due to be held at Saint Petersburg in October,” the Prime Minister said.
Dwelling on the outcome of his official visit to Belarus, the head of government stated in part: “We managed to go into the details of all those question of interest in terms of bilateral relations, including that of agricultural machinery import and construction of a factory in Armenia as a basis for Belarusian equipment.”
In view of the above, it was necessary learn the policy line embraced by the President and the Prime Minister of Belarus. “They displayed quite a positive political stance, and we can continue working in this direction. The same is true with the delivery of municipal buses. As Belarus is making modernized buses, we only needed to look at their technical specifications and pricing features,” Tigran Sargsyan noticed and added that Economy Minister Tigran Davtyan’s meeting with the chief executives of large factories had been quite useful in this respect.
“Tourism is seen as the third key area of cooperation. As the Armenian side seeks to bring in tourists from Belarus, we agreed to promote contacts between travel agencies,” the Prime Minister advised.
The export of Armenia-make farm produce was also taken up during the meetings: “There is sufficiently high demand in Belarus for Armenian food products. What is important is that the talks concentrated on specific kinds of goods and services. The political relationship with Belarus is on a very high level, and we need to tap on the existing economic potential. This was the motto of my first meeting with the newly appointed Prime Minister of Belarus. We were able to strike up close personal bonds which may be instrumental in addressing any such problem as may be faced ahead,” Tigran Sargsyan underscored in conclusion.
The 30th sitting of the interstate council of EurAsEC (Eurasian Economic Commonwealth) was held today in Minsk. Armenia has the status of observer within the EurAsEC.
