OREANDA-NEWS. Belarus has done all that it takes to overtake Ukraine and become Russia's Nr.1 trade partner, Russia's Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev said on Friday following a meeting with Belarus' Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich.

If oil and energy resources are not taken into account, the turnover of commodities between Belarus and Russia is permanently on the rise. All in all, the bilateral turnover expanded by 11% on the year.

In the meantime, Belarus' Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich suggests the idea of promoting industrial cooperation and further boosting the bilateral turnover of commodities in the context of the increasing competition on the global market.

The Belarusian premier suggests bolstering industrial cooperation in agriculture, production of pharmaceuticals, other sectors.

“We have removed a lot of barriers in bilateral trade, however the process of merging industrial and financial capital is slow so far, so Dmitri Anatolyevich and I have made an agreement on the principle plan of joint activities,” Myasnikovich said.

In the meantime, Russian Premier Medvedev is unhappy about the pace of development of joint projects with Belarus in the area of power engineering, automobile production, electronics and information technologies. The premier hopes the parties will soon find a way to breathe a new life into those integration projects.

The Russian premier suggests looking at the industrial potential of both states from the point of view of the market economy.

The Union State budget plan for 2014 will total around RUB5 billion, Medvedev informed. The largest share of funds of the union budget will go to support development in the real economy sector (power engineering, construction, agriculture, transport and telecommunications).

All in all, the union budget will provide funding for around 40 programmes.