BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

26/03/2007

Belarus Opens Its Beer Market for Russia

Russian and Belarusian prime ministers agreed on Friday to lift barriers in bilateral trade. Russia also signed a fuel and energy budget of the united state of the two countries for 2007. The document is purely declaratory but it still gives Belarus some grounds to persist in an energy dispute with Russia.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and his Belarusian counterpart Sergey Sidorsky signed a trade cooperation agreement on Friday. Belarus earlier estimated it would lose up to $2.5 billion in case the deal is ratified. Russian Economic Development Minister German Gref declined to put his signature onto the document last week after Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Kobyakov had suggested putting off the date for its implementation.

The document lifts most of the restrictions that Russia thinks were hampering its exports to Belarus, including alcohol, tobacco, vegetables, fish and household chemical goods. The deal also streamlines beer exports and scraps rules binding Belarusian companies to buy only local agricultural equipment. Most of the barriers are to be lifted after July 1.

The deal also sets a date for bilateral talks on Belarusian sugar exports. Moscow earlier accused its neighbor of passing off Latin American sugar as that Belarusian-made.

In return, Moscow has ratified the fuel and energy budget of the united State of the two countries for this year. Under the deal, Russia is expected to ship to Belarus 21.2 billion cu. meters of gas and at least 17.6 million tons of oil, in 2007. After Russia placed introduced duties on oil supplies to Belarus, Russian companies sharply cut on oil supplies to Belarusian refineries.

A Russian official at the talks noted that the energy document is not legally binding. Still, Minsk has got yet another tool to use in the ongoing gas war with Moscow. All the more, the $1.5 billion loan for gas and oil purchases that Belarus is seeking to secure in Russia is still up in the air since the Russian budget for this year has no stipulation for it.

Source:

http://www.kommersant.com/p753182/r_529/Belarus_Trade_Deal/