Cooperation and a free trade zone: what the prime ministers agreed on at the forum of CIS governments

Russia stands for mutually beneficial and equal cooperation, without imposing its own rules of the game on anyone, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said during an expanded meeting at the Eurasian Congress in Sochi. Strengthening integration ties has become the main topic of the first two days of negotiations with the heads of government of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). For two days, bilateral meetings were held with the Prime Ministers of Cuba (observer in the EAEU) Manuel Marrero Cruz, Belarus – Roman Golovchenko, Armenia – Nikol Pashinyan, Kyrgyzstan – Akylbek Zhaparov, Kazakhstan – Alikhan Smailov, Uzbekistan – Abdulla Aripov, Azerbaijan – Ali Asadov, Tajikistan – Kokhir Rasulzada. The multilateral format was provided by the meetings of the Council of the CIS countries and the Intergovernmental Council of the EAEU.

A clear example of the fact that cooperation between countries already exists was supposed to be the exhibition “Eurasia is our home”. At it, Mishustin and his colleagues were presented, for example, the Eurasian Bus project, which is 80% assembled from components produced in the EAEU states. The countries participating in the exhibition in the design of the stands tried to demonstrate the potential and strengths of their economies – production know-how, agricultural products, achievements in the field of transport. The Prime Minister was accompanied by his deputies – Deputy Prime Ministers Dmitry Chernyshenko, Marat Khusnullin, Denis Manturov (concurrent with the post of Minister of Industry and Trade), Alexei Overchuk, Dmitry Grigorenko.