Belarus will provide humanitarian aid to Tajikistan. The Council of Ministers of Belarus passed relevant Resolution No. 430. “EurAsEC Secretary General Tair Mansurov addressed the Government of Belarus with a request to help Tajikistan in connection with the crisis caused by the unusually cold winter,” the spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry of Belarus, Vitally Novitsky, told BelTA. Belarus will send two diesel mobile power plants, 5.000 blankets and 10.000 meat cans. The Br402m...

The Belarusian Culture Ministry jointly with the Belarusian Union of People Engaged in Theatrical Art have established the Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich’s Prize, BelTA learnt from Mikhail Kozlovich, the head of the arts department of the Culture Ministry. An expert commission will make a decision who among actors, directors, script writers, playwrights or artistic groups will be awarded the prize devoted to the 200th anniversary of birth of founder of the Belarusian literature,...

Belarus and Russia intend to identify a new area of economic cooperation, chairman of the government of the Russian Federation Viktor Zubkov said at a session of the Union State Council of Ministers. Over the past four years the bilateral trade doubled to $26 billion in 2007. “Yet the potential has not been tapped to the full. Today we intend to consider the ways of exploiting this potential,” the Russian Premier said. According to him, the agenda of the session includes the tariff and...

The economic activity between Belarus and Russia is so high, that it has no analogues in the world, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting with Chairman of the Russian government Viktor Zubkov on March 21. “I am very happy that our meetings always result in progress in the implementation of bilateral agreements”, the head of state noted. Alexander Lukashenko expressed his gratitude to the President and Premier of Russia for the prompt and successful development of...

Belarus is going to cooperate with the financial corporations of Korea. The creation of Korean financial companies in Belarus is a new area of the bilateral cooperation, Sergei Sidorsky, the Prime Minister of Belarus, said at a meeting with Lee Yun Soo, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to the Republic of Belarus, in Minsk on March 19. The Prime Minister of Belarus noted that “next week he is going to meet with the head of the Korean large financial...

In 2008, Br625.3 billion will be allocated from the national budget to address the Chernobyl problems, Emergencies Minister of Belarus Enver Bariev said at a session of the Council of Ministers Presidium on March 19. The session focused on the implementation of the Chernobyl programme 2006-2010. According to the minister, Br107.5 billion will be assigned in 2008 to finance the construction of water supply networks, housing for the specialists who have come to work in education, health care...

The Russian parliament has completed ratification of the Belarusian-Russian protocol on levying indirect taxes on services. On March 19 the document was ratified by the Council of Federation, or upper chamber of the Russian parliament. The document was passed by the Russian State Duma on March 7. The agreement between the governments of Belarus and Russia on the principles of levying indirect taxes in exports and imports of goods, services came into force on January 1, 2005. The issue...

Cardinal changes should be made in the fight against organized crime, corruption, economic offences, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said during a meeting on enhancing defence capacity of the state, the rule of law and security in Belarus on March 18. According to the Head of State, reports on the operational situation in the country do not reflect the real state of affairs. “Ensuring high quality of the work of the whole law-enforcement system is the guarantee of ensuring...

Belarus is interested in the OSCE recommendations on the improvement of the parliamentary system, Vadim Popov, the Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly, said at a meeting with Hans Jochen Schmidt, the head of the OSCE Office in Minsk, in the House of Government on March 18. The Belarusian politician congratulated Mr. Hans Jochen Schmidt on taking over the post of the chief of the OSCE Office in Minsk and expressed confidence that “it would promote further...

Belarus and Russia have reversed negative trends in trade, Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky noted during his meeting with State Secretary of the Belarus-Russia Union State Pavel Borodin in Minsk on March 17. “We have reversed the negative trends which we saw in 2005-2006 following the introduction of the VAT based on the country of destination principle,” Sergei Sidorsky noted. In 2007, the Belarus-Russia trade hit $26 billion. In January-February 2008, the bilateral trade...