The Belarusian-Armenian interparliamentary cooperation commission plans to hold a session in Minsk on February 23-24, Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly Vladimir Andreichenko said as he met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to Belarus Oleg Esayan, reported Belta .
The Belarusian part of the cooperation commission has already been set up. According to Vladimir Andreichenko, the forthcoming session will help establish closer contacts between the National Assemblies of Armenia and Belarus. The agenda of the session includes goals to enhance energy security. Armenia has a rich experience in the field, the Belarusian speaker said.
Vladimir Andreichenko stressed that the Belarusian and Armenian parliamentarians have been closely cooperating including within the international organisations. The recent years have seen the cooperation between the two countries considerably intensified. With setting up the bilateral commission, the parliaments of Armenia and Belarus have reached higher level of cooperation, Vladimir Andreichenko added.
"Although we have no common borders, Belarus and Armenia have established warm friendly relations. The mutual trade has been increasing year-on-year," Chairman of the House of Representatives said. At the same time, according to him, the potential in the trade and economic relations of the two countries remains untapped.
Vladimir Andreichenko invited an official delegation of Armenia and its Speaker to visit Belarus this year.
On his part, Oleg Esayan said that Belarusian-Armenian relations have been successfully developing almost in all areas: politics, economy, culture. The two countries have similar positions on all most important issues of international politics. Yet there is a need to put more efforts in creation of joint companies, investment projects, interbank cooperation. Oleg Esayan is confident that "2009 can be most important for starting a new series of high-level visits."
According to the Ambassador of Armenia, bilateral trade has increased significantly over the past several years. Last year, trade between Belarus and Armenia reached $28.2 million, up 18.9 over 2007.
An increase in Belarusian exports to Armenia came on the back of large contracts for the delivery of Belarusian goods for the mining industry. Belarus' major exports to Armenia were tyres, trucks, medicines, tractors, special-purpose vehicles. All in all Belarus exports more than 140 types of products to Armenia.
Oleg Esayan conveyed an invitation to Vladimir Andreichenko from the Speaker of the Armenian parliament to pay an official visit to Armenia this year.