BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/06/2009

Medvedev adheres to civilized trade with everyone, including Belarus

MOSCOW, June 21 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia adheres to civilized trade with everyone, including Belarus, President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Channel One anchor Kirill Kleimenov.

"Talking about these latest events, we were a bit taken aback, of course, by the way our Belarusian friends and partners reacted to what was happening. The situation is really quite simple, after all. What we need is civilized trade, even between such close and brotherly countries as Russia and Belarus. A year ago now, we adopted some new rules and said they would have to obtain new certificates for meat and dairy imports from Belarus. We know that they export a lot to Russia. Almost 100 percent of their exports in these products are to Russia. But a year went by and nothing was changed, nothing was done in Belarus. And so when the new rules took effect the trade flow came to a halt. That is the first reason for this situation," he said.

"The second reason lies in the fact that our market is vast, but it is not unlimited. We have our own producers, and no matter what the warm and fraternal feelings we have for our Belarusian partners and for Belarus' farmers, our own farmers are still closer to our hearts.

"By now we have found solutions and trade will resume. I hope the situation we saw will not hinder the development of normal cooperation in the agriculture sector and also our coordinated action on accession to the WTO. After all, we established a special customs union together with Belarus and Kazakhstan, and now we will enter the WTO together," Medvedev said.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14071735&PageNum=0

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