Belarus views countries of Latin America and the Caribbean as promising partners

Belarus' interest in cooperation with Latin America is not changing depending on political trends, Belarusian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Evgeny Shestakov told the media on the sidelines of the second Belarusian-Latin American forum in Moscow on 20 April, BelTA has learned.

"I would not say that our interests are changing radically: Belarus has always considered the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean as promising partners in terms of political cooperation and as of recently in terms of economic cooperation as we are responding to the recent challenges and focusing on export promotion to distant countries ," Evgeny Shestakov noted.

He stated that for Belarus the Latin American market is very interesting yet very complex. "Our task is to find the niches and opportunities for our manufacturers," the deputy foreign minister added.

"This is the second such forum, it is often more convenient for us to work with Latin American states in Moscow, since the level of diplomatic representation of Latin American states here almost completely covers the continent. During the forum, we conveyed (which is very important, in my opinion) the information about the ways of making payments for supplies amid sanctions imposed by some countries and also about the new logistics that are competitive and that can be used to deliver our products to Latin American countries," Evgeny Shestakov emphasized. In his opinion, there are niches for Belarusian supplies in almost all sectors in Latin America: industry, transport, agriculture, biotechnology, the IT, and so on.

As for political cooperation with Latin American countries, the deputy minister noted that Belarus maintains equal relations with the overwhelming majority of countries in the region. “These are the relations that do not imply any confrontation in international organizations, since we often have similar views and since all Latin American countries, let's say, still continue to fight manifestations of neocolonialism, world hegemony and so on. We have warm, friendly relations with many countries. The cooperation with some other is less active due to their greater focus on their market," Evgeny Shestakov said.

The second Belarusian-Latin American forum in Moscow gathered over 40 Latin American diplomats, who are accredited in Russia. More than ten countries were represented at the ambassadorial level. Representatives of the Belarusian Industry Ministry, the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, OAO Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus, and the largest Belarusian companies presented Belarus' export potential for them.