Trade Barriers Between Belarus and Russia Still Persist, Seliviorstau Says

Belarusian Ambassador to Russia Yury Seliviorstau has spoken about trade barriers between Belarus and Russia, including issues affecting BelGee vehicles and the mutual recognition of electronic digital signatures, BelTA reports.

“Despite ongoing efforts to remove barriers to mutual trade, they still exist in one form or another. There are technological barriers; for example, for several years the failure to complete work on the mutual recognition of electronic digital signatures has remained a problem. However, the issue has still not been resolved,” Seliviorstau said at the Forum of Regions of Belarus and Russia on June 25.

He stressed that work on the mutual recognition of electronic digital signatures should be completed this year.

The Belarusian side has also encountered problems with Russian localization requirements. As a result, Belarusian manufacturers are being excluded from import substitution programmes. Seliviorstau cited the BelGee plant as an example, saying it had lost access to the Russian taxi market because of new localization requirements.

“In many cases, Russia introduces requirements for the level of production localization, thereby excluding Belarusian manufacturers from import substitution programmes. For example, the introduction of requirements for vehicles used in taxi services from March this year has effectively cut the Belarusian BelGee plant off from this important market segment.

Other measures are also being introduced as part of efforts to ‘clean up’ the economy. On the one hand, they protect our market from unfair competition from third countries, but on the other, they create obstacles for Belarusian exporters,” Seliviorstau complained.

The official said the objectives of such decisions were understandable, but the mechanism needed to be improved because “any shortcomings may lead to a decline in supplies, and that means jobs for people whom we cannot let down.”

Seliviorstau called for bilateral trade mechanisms to be simplified as much as possible and for decisions to be more thoroughly developed before they are adopted.

“As practice shows, detailed work on individual decisions begins only after they have already been adopted. What prevents regulators in the two countries from doing this work in advance? If we want to continue developing, the only solution is to simplify bilateral trade mechanisms as much as possible. I do not mean abolishing controls, but making them as transparent and convenient as possible through automation, especially when introducing new regulatory mechanisms,” Seliviorstau said.