Sergei Sidorskiy: Belarus will stabilise overseas trade by late 2007

Belarus Prime Minister Sergei Sidorskiy said he was confident before the year is out, the foreign trade situation will be stabilised in Belarus. Commenting on results of his report to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko today, Sergei Sidorskiy told media, “So far we cannot reach the foreign trade surplus goals set by the President early this year”. He attributed the situation to various objective and subjective reasons. In particular, he mentioned lower sales of petroleum products in 2007. Besides, this year “we should pay $1 billion more for Russian gas than last year”. The President of Belarus issued an instruction to increase export in order to compensate for these expenses. He also gave an instruction that export growth should exceed import growth by at least 5%. A foreign trade surplus should be the key task of the central government, local authorities and economic entities. “The programmes are checked. There is confidence that by the end of the year the parameter will be stabilised”, stressed Sergei Sidorskiy.