BELARUS, RUSSIA’S AFK SISTEMA SIGN GENERAL COOPERATION AGREEMENT
 The Government of Belarus and Russia’s AFK Sistema signed general cooperation agreement on March 13. The document was signed by Vladimir Semashko, First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, and Alexander Goncharuk, President of Sistema. The main goal of the agreement is to attract investments to the Republic of Belarus through the implementation of economically viable and socially significant investment projects in a number of industries, Vladimir Semashko told reporters.
“The main idea is that AFK Sistema will bring its technology and investment to promote mutually beneficial business relations and implement social projects in Belarus,” he said.
Vladimir Semashko reminded the reporters that the President of Belarus met with the chief executives of AFK Sistema on October 29, 2007. The two sides were tasked to work out in detail possible areas of mutually beneficial cooperation,” Vladimir Semashko said. For the time being we have determined these cooperation areas, he added.
The agreement identifies eight most important areas of joint work. “We worked hard for four and a half months to sign the document today. We met many times to discuss every point of the document,” Vladimir Semashko said.
According to him, the next stage of cooperation will be signing individual agreements between governmental bodies of Belarus and Sistema and its subsidiaries. “We have agreed not to protract this process. Within a month we need to prepare contracts in all eight areas of cooperation,” Vladimir Semashko said.
A reminder, a steering committee has been set up to execute joint projects, and consists of 12 representatives of the Government of the Republic of Belarus and ten representatives of Sistema and its subsidiaries.
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