Forum of CIS Regions – Strengthening Cooperation

The CIS Regions Forum was held in Uzbekistan, with a large-scale meeting bringing together representatives of business, education, and government structures. Elena Malinovskaya, Deputy Chairperson of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, took part in the event.

Three key sections aimed at strengthening co-operation between the Commonwealth countries were envisaged.

Section No. 1 – ‘The Role of Regions in the Development of Economic Cooperation among CIS Member States’, where experts discussed new economic strategies and regional initiatives.

Section No. 2 – ‘Joint Educational Programmes and Cultural and Humanitarian Cooperation’. Here the emphasis was placed on integration in the sphere of science, culture and innovations.

During the third section, special attention was paid to the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Heads of Chambers of the CIS member states. The topic of BelCCI's speech was: ‘Electronic certificates – new opportunities to facilitate mutual trade’.

– Within the framework of the Commonwealth we have all the conditions for increasing co-operation and trade turnover. A free trade zone agreement has been signed, a free trade in services agreement has recently entered into force. Therefore, the next necessary stage is the digitalisation of issuance of certificates of origin of goods of ST-1 form. Firstly, this will speed up the process of obtaining certificates and make life easier for businesses that receive these certificates. Secondly, it will significantly simplify the work of experts and eliminate errors on their part. The database will be unified and we will be able to issue more certificates without opening additional offices," explained Elena Malinovskaya.