Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was on a two-day official visit to Belarus on October 8-9.

He met with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. During the meeting, Lukashenko said Belarus and Turkmenistan have created a unique cooperation formula based on the annual exchange of visits by the leaders of the two countries.

He also noted Belarus tries to build its relations with other countries on the same principles. Such an approach has already paid off: Turkmenistan is now the fourth largest trade partner of Belarus among the CIS countries after Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan and over a short period of time the trade turnover between the two countries has reached to almost $0.5 billion.

Berdymukhamedov, for his turn, said Belarus and Turkmenistan have good cooperation prospects, for example, in engineering, metallurgical and chemical industries, food manufacturing, and agriculture. He also emphasized the importance of cooperation in science, culture, and sport fields.

Later, Berdymukhamedov and Lukashenko held an expanded meeting, during which Lukashenko said the Belarusian side is ready to supply harvesters, passenger buses, railway freight cars to Turkmenistan.

"I am confident that the Belarusian vehicles, which are being tested in complicated climatic conditions of Turkmenistan, will prove their ability and we will sign mutually beneficial contracts in this field," he noted.

The Belarusian president also said good cooperation between the Belarusian company Fidmash and Turkmen oil and gas companies opens up new prospects in the mining and chemical industries.

Lukashenko noted the establishment of a joint venture to make uniforms for Turkmen power-wielding agencies' staff could be a pilot project in the light industry.

"Certainly, we should bear in mind the conventionally developed ties - future shipments of Belarusian trucks and tractors," the Belarusian president said. "The development of new avenues of interaction given Turkmenistan's policy in favor of the accelerated modernization of the production sector creates a real base for future expansion of mutual trade."

Lukashenko went on to add that the Belarusian economic operators are also ready to take an active part in the implementation of projects in the construction of transport communications and logistics development in Turkmenistan.

Following the meeting, Berdymukhamedov and Lukashenko signed a joint statement and an intergovernmental agreement on trade and economic cooperation.

The agreement envisages cooperation in delivery of agricultural, automotive, road building equipment and utility machinery from Belarus to Turkmenistan.

The sides also signed an agreement on cooperation in preventing and addressing emergency situations, a Memorandum of Understanding on major principles of cooperation in the transport sector, an agreement on cooperation between the history institutes of the two countries, an agreement between the Institute for the Study of Turkmen National Products Turnover and the National Centre for Marketing and Price Study of Belarus, a friendship and cooperation agreement between Ashgabat and Minsk, a cooperation agreement between the administration of Turkmenistan's Lebap province and Minsk Regional Executive Committee, as well as partnership documents at the level of specialized universities.

Diplomatic relations between Belarus and Turkmenistan were established in 1993. Foreign trade turnover between the two countries has increased fivefold over the past five years. Belarus exports tractors, trucks, road, construction and agricultural equipment, bicycles, autoloaders, tires, medicines, chemical fibers, wood products and food.

Belarus supplied products worth $140 million to Turkmenistan in January-August 2014. It is planned to supply Belarusian technologies worth $150 million to the Central Asian country by the end of the year.

The largest joint project is the contract for construction of a mining and processing plant in Turkmenistan's eastern region implemented by Belgorkhimprom JSC since 2010. The plant is planned to be commissioned in 2015.