Lukashenka will not go to SPIEF-2023

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko does not plan to personally take part in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), which will be held in June 2023. This was announced by the Ambassador of Belarus to Russia Dmitry Krutoy, transmits TASS.

“Our President <...> does not plan to participate. The next meeting of such large forums is being worked out now – this is Ufa, the tenth anniversary forum of the regions of Belarus and Russia,” he said on the sidelines of the Karelforum-2023 stone processing forum in Petrozavodsk.

Krutoy specified that the Belarusian delegation to the SPIEF will be headed by the first vice-premier of the republic, “who is in charge of economic issues.” We are talking about Nikolai Snopkov, follows from the data of the website of the government of Belarus.

In April last year, Lukashenka announced that he planned to visit both the St. Petersburg forum and Eastern Economic Forum (WEF). “I plan, but man proposes and God disposes” said then the Belarusian leader. As a result, Lukashenka was not personally present at any SPIEF, nor on WEF. The President of Belarus participated in SPIEF three times – in 1998, 2007 and 2008.

This year, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum will be held from 14 to 17 June. Earlier it became known that participation in the event will accept Syrian Finance Minister Kenan Yagi. Also visit of Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz announced Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

In 2022, SPIEF was held from 15 to 18 June. The event became an anniversary – SPIEF took place for the 25th time. As the organizers noted, 14,000 people from 131 countries took part in the event. On the final day of the forum, the amount of agreements concluded reached 5.6 trillion rubles.