Belarusian State Customs Committee will tighten customs control at the main Belarusian-Russian checkpoints effective of Wednesday, Russia's Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday.
"In line with the order of the president, I instructed tighter control over cargo at the main Belarusian-Russian routes at 9 a.m. tomorrow (June 17)," said Alexander Shpilevsky, head of the committee.
"This decision is justified, because counterfeit goods worth 8. 62 billion rubles (around 277 million U.S. dollars) were seized in the first 15 days of this month," he said, adding that Belarus " lost cargo worth 10 million dollars in the Kaliningrad direction last year."
Yury Zhadobin, secretary of Belarusian Security Council, said " these measures will be fully compliant with the actions which the Russian side on behalf of the Federal Customs Service has been taking for many years."
Russia, a major consumer of Belarusian agricultural and industrial goods, has banned over 1,000 dairy products imported from Belarus recently, dealing a heavy blow to the latter's foreign trade.