OREANDA-NEWS. On 11 March, President Alexander Lukashenko met with Gennady Novitsky, the Chairman of the Council of the Republic of Belarus.

The meeting focused on law-making activity of the Council of the Republic, interparliamentary cooperation, the Council’s efforts to promote interaction between local authorities under the upper house of parliament.

Specifically, the Council of the Republic focused on improving the quality of preparation of legal enactments. Earlier the Council of the Republic used to start working on a legal enactment at the final stage of its preparation; now the Council works with legal enactments from the moment the respective concepts are drawn up and up till the enactment is submitted to the Head of State for singing.

As for interparliamentary cooperation, the Council of the Republic has been recently working closely with the executive authorities. Much attention is paid to contacts between Belarusian senators and foreign businessmen to clear out some aspects of the Belarusian legislation for the latter, to explain the privileges and advantages of investing in Belarus.

The meeting touched upon cooperation between Belarus and South Africa. Last summer the President said he wanted the relationship to be intensified. Gennady Novitsky said that work was being carried out in close contact with the organisations and agencies concerned. The legal framework of cooperation with South Africa allows the two countries to have large-scale interaction. Last year, the countries increased trade more than three times, and Belarus boosted its exports eight times. But Belarus and South Africa still have huge untapped potential for cooperation growth, Gennady Novitsky said .

The President proposed that the Council of the Republic should team up with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus to develop projects of cooperation with South Africa, including the setting up of joint production companies in South Africa.

The meeting also touched upon matters related to the upcoming parliamentary elections in Belarus.