According to the information, this was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, after agreeing on it with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexandr Lukashenko.

It is expected that this Friday the Council of Ministers of the State of the Union, meeting in Minsk, will give the green light to the projects that must be approved by the Supreme State Council of the State of the Union before the end of the year.

The decision was revealed after the meeting between the two leaders yesterday in this capital and aims at ‘unifying Russian and Belarusian laws in different areas of the economy and making the position of economic entities of both countries equal’, Putin said.

On this point, he also announced that before December 1, 2023, his country and Belarus will sign an agreement for the creation of a joint gas market, Sputnik news agency indicated.

‘We agreed to carry out a common macroeconomic policy, match monetary policy, integrate payment systems, guarantee information security, deepen cooperation in customs and the fiscal area’, he said.

The head of state commented that Moscow and Minsk also agreed to create a methodology to align the tax systems. ‘We are moving towards a unified industrial policy and access to state purchases and state orders’, he said.

He announced that the country will provide Belarus with credit loans worth between 630 and 640 million dollars from September this year until the end of 2022.

pgh/lcr