BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

22/11/2007

President of Turkmenistan to visit Belarus next year

Today, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov received prime minister of the Republic of Belarus Sergey Sidorsky who arrived in Ashgabat the day before a CIS heads of government council meeting. The guest conveyed Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's greetings to Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and said that Minsk awaits the Turkmen president's visit to Belarus. Having thanked him for kind words, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov conveyed best wishes to the president of the friendly state and said he would undoubtedly pay a visit to Belarus next year.

As the Turkmen State News Service (TDH) reports, the sides discussed priority areas of interstate cooperation at the meeting. Agriculture was named one of such areas. As Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said, good quality and reliable farm equipment produced in Belarus proved successful in the soil-climatic conditions of Turkmenistan. Considering the fact that Belarusian farm equipment makes up the bulk of Turkmenistan agricultural-industrial complex's technical fleet, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov proposed to set up after-sale services of this equipment in Turkmenistan as well as to arrange training of specialists in the premises of the agricultural institute being built in Dashoguz. On his part, Sergey Sidorskiy confirmed Belarus's readiness to increase supplies of equipment both for agriculture and road construction as well as municipal services.

While discussing the cooperation in the fuel-energy sector, the sides looked into Belarus's offer to provide oil wells services and construct modern processing plants, in particular a methanol plant.

According to interlocutors, there is also a wide range of opportunities for cooperation in the field of city development. The Belarusian side expressed readiness to share its experience in this field, including construction of underground tunnels. As Sergey Sidorsky noted, Belarusian specialists would also like to take active part in implementing the project on creating the free tourist zone Avaza on the Caspian Sea coast by building a big international standard recreation center there. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, in turn, invited Belarusian partners to attend another presentation of projects on development a tourist zone on the Caspian Sea which is due on December 3.

At the meeting the sides emphasized the need to speed up the work of the bilateral intergovernmental commission. It was noted that a trade-business house which is to be built with the Turkmen president's consent in Ashgabat in half a year will help boost mutually advantageous partnership.

The meeting was also attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus in Turkmenistan Yuriy Malumov.

Source:

http://www.turkmenistan.ru/?page_id=3&lang_id=en&elem_id=11647&type=event&sort=date_desc