Russia and Belarus report rise in trade

Russia is the main economic and trade partner of Belarus: it accounted for 59.5 percent of the total foreign trade volume of Belarus in 2001 and 58.1 percent in January-November 2002, a report prepared by the Belarusian Foreign Ministry says. At the same time, Belarus was the second foreign trade partner of Russia (in volume) after Germany.

The volume of trade between Russia and Belarus increased 4.2 percent to a little more than $8.85bn in the first eleven months of 2002 compared to the corresponding period in 2001.