OREANDA-NEWS. October 05, 2010. Belarus and Russia signed an intergovernmental agreement to redeploy transport control to the external border of the Union State. The document was signed following the meeting of the coordination commission for the Union State unified transport system, which was held in Minsk.

Minister of Transport and Communications of Belarus Ivan Shcherbo noted that the agreement will give a new impetus for the development of transport systems of the Union State. Experts of the commission also developed a draft plan to integrate the transport structures of Russia and Belarus for 2011-2012, said Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin.

According to Ivan Shcherbo, the agreement will take effect as soon as the national procedures are completed. “We will complete these procedures soon and the agreement will enter into force,” he said.

Speaking about the importance of the agreement for the unified transport system, the minister said: “There will be no border as such with the Russian Federation. All transport vehicles going to Belarus, Russia will be subject to unified control at the customs border of the Union State.”

This, according to Ivan Shcherbo, will help preserve the achievements made in the integration of the transport systems and facilitate further progress. “Almost a million of vehicles cross the border of the Republic of Belarus today, 400,000 of them are transit Russian cars,” he said.

The negotiations also highlighted the issues of further cooperation between the two countries taking into account the formation of the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, common positions regarding the cooperation with international organizations, transport and road construction issues.

A protocol was signed by the participants of the 12th session of the coordination commission for the Union State unified transport system. The session was chaired by Transport and Communications Minister of Belarus Ivan Shcherbo and Transport Minister of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin.