On January 15, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenk0o is expected to approve the resolution concerning the state border policy for 2009, BelTA learnt from the press service of the head of state.
On September 27, 2007, in line with President's decree, the Belarus State Border Troops Committee was renamed to the Belarus State Border Committee and the border troops were renamed to the border services.
As of January 2009, the established strength of the Belarusian border services was 13,332 people.
According to President's Decree No313 of May 10, the Belarus state border includes 82 border checkpoints including 44 international border checkpoints (19 road-transport border checkpoints, 13 railway, 7 air border checkpoints and 1 pedestrian border checkpoint), 6 interstate (road-transport) and 22 simplified crossing border checkpoints.
The length of the state border is around 3 617,555 kilometres. The Belarusian border services protect 2 334,56 kilometres including the Belarusian-Latvian part of the border - 172,912 kilometres, the Belarusian-Lithuanian part of the border - 678,819 kilometres, the Belarusian-Polish part of the border - 398,624 kilometres and the Belarusian-Ukrainian part of the border - 1084,2 kilometres.
In 2008, Belarus was elected to lead the working group to counteract illegal migration of the international border conference which includes more than 40 border agencies. In 2008, $2.1 million was spent within the framework of the projects of the international technical aid.