Meeting with speaker of lower house of India’s Parliament Sumitra Mahajan

Belarus and India should work more actively on expanding economic relations, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he met with Sumitra Mahajan, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament, on 12 June.

“Taking into consideration our common stance on the international agenda, mutual support at international organizations, first of all, at the United Nations, we need to act more decisively and actively in promoting economic relations, investment and so on,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The head of state noted that on the sidelines of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in China he met with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the bilateral relations. The parties outlined promising areas of cooperation. “We talked a lot about Belarus-India relations,” the President added.

The visit of Sumitra Mahajan to Belarus testifies to the commitment of the leadership of the two countries to strengthen the relations, Aleksandr Lukashenko underlined. “We would like these political contacts to rely on a very strong trade and economic foundation. We have everything in place to move away from conventional trade (this is also important, of course) to joint investment and joint ventures both in India and Belarus,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

Earlier Belarus had invited India to establish a joint industrial park to manufacture high-tech goods following the model of cooperation with China. In addition, the country offers its transportation and logistics capabilities to transport Indian goods to the regions of the EU and the EAEU. "The proposals remain valid. I know that your country welcomed them. We would like to proceed to the park construction in Belarus more quickly,” the head of state noted.

“Bearing in mind the role of the Parliament in India, I would like to ask you to take cooperation with Belarus, especially in the field of investment, under serious control,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.