Days of Business Cooperation with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave kick off in Minsk

Belorusskie Novosti. Days of Business Cooperation with the Kaliningrad Province of Russia opened in Minsk on Tuesday.

On the same day a business matchmaking session involving seven companies based in the Russian exclave and about 40 Belarusian companies took place at the Minsk Department of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI).

In particular, the represented Kaliningrad companies included a manufacturer of cans for fish, meat products and vegetables, a seller of building materials, a peat producer, a maker of equipment for meat-packing and vegetable processing plants, an infrastructure and industrial design services provider, a bank, and a tourism company.

“It was a pleasure for us to come here because were have extremely warm relations with Belarus,” Yelena Kotylevskaya, head of the external economic relations department of the Kaliningrad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said at the meeting.

According to her, the chamber has cooperation agreements with five Belarusian regional chambers of commerce and industry.

Trade between Belarus and the Kaliningrad province totaled 3.7 billion Russian rubles last year, with Belarusian exports rising by 32 percent and imports from the province declining by almost 18 percent, said Alyaksandr Fedarchuk, director general of the BCCI Minsk Department.