Events
Expanding Economic Cooperation and Promoting Regional Exchanges
—What are the features of the Republic of Belarus located in the landlocked Eastern Europe?
The Republic of Belarus is a young country with an old history, rich cultural traditions, and great hope for the future. The Belarusians formed the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 13th to the 18th century. During this time, the first constitution in Europe was adopted in 1588. Belarus is located in the geographical center of Europe, and has been a major crossroad for traveling by land or sea. This has brought us strong trade growth. The Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park and numerous Blue Lakes attract a lot of tourists. In recent years, several thousand Japanese visitors came and enjoyed these natural heritage sites and places of interest. Belarus is often compared with Japan, because we protect our environment, and are characterized as hard-workers and good negotiators.
— What kind of nation has Belarus aimed for building after independence in 1991?
President Lukashenko’s motto is “building state for people”. As a sovereign independent nation, we are pushing forward with our multilateral foreign policy, advancement in culture, education, science, and sports, as well as economic modernization. Although we are aiming to build a market-oriented economy, there still remain state-owned companies. Our traditional industries include light manufacturing, textiles, woodworking, agriculture, etc. which developed during the time of the Soviet Union. In the manufacturing fields, we see much growth in agricultural machines, trucks, household electric appliances, high-tech products, bio-based products, cosmetics, space equipment, etc. Private enterprises are growing fast, and a significant part of our trade is conducted through them.
— Please tell us about the present economic condition and currently-growing industrial fields in Belarus.
We achieved the economic growth of 3% in 2018. Our industrial production increased by 7.5%, mainly in the areas of machinery, woodworking, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. The tax incentives helped the production in the High-Tech Park, which grew far higher than the nation’s average growth and demonstrated the export growth in 2018 at the level of 38%. Belarus ranks 38th out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s 2018 Doing Business Report. Many Japanese corporations are actively establishing representative offices and regional businesses in Belarus. The Industrial park “Great Stone” and the Japan-Belarus Smart Industrial Zone in the Mogilev region, which are among free economic zones of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which offer favorable conditions for conducting business, attract considerable interest of foreign investors.
—How do you overview the development of Japan-Belarus relations? As Ambassador to Japan, which areas would you like to focus your efforts for reinforcing our bilateral ties?
January of 2019 marked the 27th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between Belarus and Japan, and there is a long history of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. A notable example is that Mr. Iosif Goshkevich, an outstanding diplomat and the 1st Russian consul to Japan who was originally from Rechitsa District of Minsk region, spent many years helping Hokkaido residents with their research of the Slavic cultures and languages. We have active exchanges in the areas of culture, education, sports, and science and a system of mutual assistance for disasters; and in particular, there are lively high-level exchanges of parliamentarians and government agencies in recent years. The first Belarusian-Japanese Economic Forum, held in May 2018, provided a momentum for mutual facilitation of trade and investments between the two countries. A business mission from ROTOBO (the Japan Association for Trade with Russia and NIS) visited Belarus for business-related dialogues between two countries. As of November 2018, the trade between the two countries has increased by 6%. Belarus is well-known in Japan for its potash fertilizers, fiberglass products, dairy products, wooden products, linen products, dosimeters, etc. Currently, an important goal in the political area is to successfully hold a summit meeting between the two countries. My mission is to expand the economic cooperation and promote regional exchanges between, for example, Mogilev and Osaka. Another important task is to introduce Belarusian art and culture to Japan, and also to continue Japanese children’s participation in the recreational program at the National Children’s Center Zubryonok at the initiative of President. In addition, we are cooperating with the city of Shiroishi, Miyagi Prefecture, and the city of Tachikawa, Tokyo which will be the pre-games training camp locations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
—What kind of relationship does Belarus have with Russia?
Belarus and Russia have established the Union State of Belarus and Russia, and are maintaining their high-level bilateral cooperation and working closely together in the global arena, within the frameworks of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the EEU, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. This is done on the basis of both countries’ sovereignty and independence, historical heritage, industrial cooperation, and civilian exchanges. The citizens can go to school and work, acquire real properties, and receive medical services in both countries. Also, we are eagerly building a relationship with other nations such as China, Vietnam and India that consider us as their trusted ally. We pay much attention to cooperation with the EU and the USA. Additionally, the collaborative projects in the Russian Far East (Sakhalin in particular) is important to us; and the Trans-Siberian Railroad is a promising transportation route to a Russian coastal port for shipping our export cargo to Japan.
（Interview by Shu Tamaru, FEC Counsellor）