OREANDA-NEWS. June 25, 2008. The information that Belarus sells dried milk at antidumping prices in Russia is not true, Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky said at a meeting with State Secretary of the Union State Pavel Borodin.

“I was surprised to hear the statement of Deputy Head of the Russian government Viktor Zubkov that Belarus continues selling dried milk at antidumping prices. In a personal conversation with Viktor Zubkov and in a relevant letter I said that Belarus can sell this product which is in short supply today at any market. What we have now is an antidumping investigation launched by Viktor Zubkov,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

According to Sergei Sidorsky, Belarus has received several requests from Russia to sell dried milk at lower prices, in accordance with the intergovernmental agreement, in order to support the social sphere. All other types of milk are sold via the exchange, Sergei Sidorsky said.

Sergei Sidorsky intends to discuss this issue in the Russian government. The Prime Minister of Belarus added that this situation reminds him “the second sugar problem”.

The Union State budget for 2009 is estimated at over RUB 5.5 billion, Secretary of State of the Union State Pavel Borodin told media on June 24.

Pavel Borodin said, the formation of the Union State’s draft budget bill for 2009 and other topical issues relating to the Belarusian-Russian trade and economic cooperation were discussed during his meeting with Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin on June 23 prior to the forthcoming session of the Union State Council of Ministers in Moscow on June 27. Contributions of Belarus and Russia to the 2009 budget are supposed to be increased by 25%. RUB523 million left from the 2008 budget will be transferred to the next year’s budget revenues.

All in all, 32 manufacturing programmes are financed by the Union State budget at present, with applications for 84 programmes filed for 2009.

The forthcoming session of the Union Cabinet is also supposed to consider performance of collegial bodies of the Union State. According to Pavel Borodin, performance of joint boards of the Justice Ministries, Defence Ministries, Foreign Ministries, and Interior Ministries deserves praise while boards of the Finance Ministries, Economy Ministries, Industry Ministries, Agriculture Ministries, and Transport Ministries virtually do not operate.

The agenda of the forthcoming session of the Union Cabinet includes cooperation in transport, customs, pricing policy issues, cooperation in agricultural products trade.

Apart from that, the State Secretary of the Union State believes it is necessary to ensure the participation of representatives of the Union State Permanent Committee in Union State meetings.

“We also need the third programme for diesel automobile engineering, we need Euro-5-compliant, and Euro-6-compliant engines,” he said.

Apart from that, Pavel Borodin believes it is necessary to ratify the Union State property agreement.

According to Pavel Borodin, at present 28,000 enterprises with 5 million jobs operate within the framework of the Union State.