Transcript Of Media Briefing By Secretary (West) In Minsk On President’s Ongoing State Visit To Belarus

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President: Good afternoon friends. You know Secretary West. With him is Mr. Manoj Bharti, ambassador of India to Belarus. I invite Secretary West to brief all of you on the developments of the morning and perhaps then the ambassador can add a few words on the overall bilateral relationship. Thank you.

Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): Well, good afternoon. This as you know the President arrived Belarus this afternoon and he was – this is the first ever state visit from India to Belarus as we've told you before. The formal part of the program started this morning and it was – it began with a very impressive ceremonial welcome at the Palace of Independence which is a very impressive monument and the ceremony was a guard of honor and well the President personally welcomed our President and took him first for restricted meeting. They met in a restricted format for almost an hour and discussed several issues including immediate bilateral issues as well as regional issues. On the bilateral issues they did a review of the bilateral relationship in terms of the importance that it had for both countries, the steadfast friendship that has marked a relationship and they also recalled their earlier meeting when President Lukashenko had visited India in 2007 and met Mr. Pranab Mukherjee in his then capacity as the foreign minister. They reviewed the economic relations between the two countries; the fact that trade which now stands at about $400 million had huge potential to increase; the fact that Belarus could offer its technological expertise in certain areas like agriculture machinery, transport machinery, infrastructural machinery, mining machinery to India and there was a possibility of setting up joint ventures under the Make in India program.

The President outlined the conceptual framework to President Lukashenko about how he saw that the relationship should be taken forward in a planned manner. He proposed to him a four-point roadmap if you like in which first he said in political relations we must maintain a regular high level political interaction through a regular exchange of bilateral visits and institutional meetings. We should also continue our close association in multilateral forum on which we've had exceedingly good cooperation on several issues of concern both to us and as well as to Belarus and secondly we should have an economic plan in which we can diversify our economic and commercial partnership. We should be able to utilize the skilled population of Belarus for niche development in line with Indian emerging programs and we should diversify our trade basket. As you know at the moment trade is primarily getting potash from Belarus and pharmaceuticals are being exported from India to Belarus but there is now potential to diversify.

The third point that the President gave as a conceptual plan to the relationship was a closer cooperation on defense issues with a strategic perspective. He mentioned that India is opening up its defense manufacturing sector. There has been a change in the FDI policy and there is a potential to jointly identify key areas of defense production and move forward on that. So this as you know Belarus has expertise in and has been cooperating with us in the past.

The fourth plan was a closer cooperation on scientific exchanges, skill development, education and culture because no relationship can really go forward unless you have very good people to people relations. Within this conceptual framework that the President outlined he also conveyed two important decisions of government of India to President Lukashenko, the first was that India had decided to accord market economy status to Belarus. This has been something which Belarus has been looking forward to for some years now and we having come to this decision and conveyed we feel that this will be a very important step in increasing our trade, removing barriers, diversifying trade as well as giving an impetus to Belarus’ engagement into the global trade system.

The second announcement or second important decision that Honorable President conveyed to President Lukashenko was the fact that the government of India had decided to extend line of credit for 100 million USD for projects which would be jointly agreed to and then processed. At the moment this is an in-principle decision to convey which was conveyed to the Belarus President. In the restricted meeting as well as in the delegation level talks that followed these points were further freshed out and both sides and the Belarus side expressed appreciation of both these decisions that were taken by India and conveyed to them.

President Lukashenko in his response also thanked the President for the conceptual framework that he had drawn out and he expressed appreciation of the kind of work Indian companies have done in Belarus. The BHEL has refurbished the Grodno Power Plant and he gave a specific example of that and he said that Indian companies would be the chosen ones as far as he was concerned, all the things being equal, in being asked to work in Belarus and that the Belarus government would do everything that was necessary to create the right conditions for them. He also responded to the President on the idea of closer cooperation in the defense sector and said that both in the defense and civil sector the Belarus companies would be keen to go forward and identify areas under the new policy guidelines and take it further. He also expressed appreciation for the fact that we had extended the line of credit as well as that we had decided to give Belarus the market economy status.

This was more or less what was decided – what was discussed on the specifics of the economic engagement. They also talked in terms of specifics on the economic status, they also talked of specifically engagement in mining area, both in terms of technology exchange and also equipment which Belarus is good at making. They talked of setting up engineering training centers in India which would also help in skill development as far as this kind of large infrastructural and transport machinery is concerned. He also mentioned that Belarus was looking for new supply chains in the market and they thought that if they started producing in India in terms of joint ventures it would also give them access to the ASEAN countries for example.

Certain other new areas which were talked about that was electronic energy sector, nano and biotechnology and banking and finance cooperation between the two countries. All in all – thereafter of course they – before they went to lunch the two leaders took an overall stock of the bilateral relationship and quite clearly there was a very obvious personal warmth which President Lukashenko extended to our President and describing India as a loyal and a reliable friend and assuring us that the cooperation that Belarus had been extending on issues of India’s concern in fact which India too has been extended on points of concern to Belarus would be continued. The President also invited President Lukashenko to visit India at mutually convenient dates.

President Lukashenko then hosted a lunch banquet in honor of visiting Indian President and the delegation, large number of senior ministers from the Belarus side and other dignitaries were present. And this is now what I'm telling you is basically just the first (inaudible) but the visit has virtually only just begun and I'll detail to you the agreements that were signed.

Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): You've already got a list. So these are important agreements. The one thing which I would like to draw your attention to is a roadmap that we have exchanged which actually just puts out in different sectors what the bilateral relationship has for itself in the days, in the near future and we have an agreement on textiles and have an agreement on standardization and there was one on SEBI. So the details that you have a separate list. In terms of other issues that came up for discussion just to give you flavor, the President recalled the fact that Rabindranath Tagore had visited Belarus in 1931 which showed that even then people of Minsk and the people of India had the desire to know more about each other. He also mentioned the fact that there is a business delegation which is also here using the fact of the visit and this is going to be meeting tomorrow with and was hopeful of finding local partners. The President also highlighted the fact that these cultural relations which are a backdrop enough to go also we needed to do something more concrete about it like perhaps setting up a chair of Indian studies in Belarus State University. He thanked the Belarus side for the support they have extended to the and also the decision to make 21 June the International Yoga Day.

So these were I think more or less I have covered. There will be some business agreements being signed during the function tomorrow on business. Academic agreements will also be signed today between institutes of higher learning and universities, the academic delegation that is traveling with the President will be doing that. We will give you details as soon as we have them. I'm going to request Venu and Ambassador to add anything that I may have missed out.

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President: Thank you sir. Just a little bit of the language which was used, the secretary has already mentioned the President of Belarus describing India as a loyal and reliable friend. He said India has been a loyal and reliable friend of Belarus from the first days of Belarus’ independence and we have always had a good partnership and dialogue over the last 20 years. He categorically said that Belarus is ready for closer bilateral cooperation and is ready to take part in the modernization in particular of the mining sector which was mentioned by secretary for joint ventures in India. He also specifically invited – he acknowledged India’s lead in the pharmaceutical field and welcomed Indian investments in the pharma field in Belarus. He said that distance is not an obstacle in improving relations between India and Belarus and he like our President emphasized the need to diversify economic relations.

The President of Belarus said that they are ready to take all the decisions which are required to advance our relations and that he reiterated that India was seen as a very reliable partner and Belarus stands ready to implement the roadmap which has been agreed upon between the two countries. The President in his statement reiterated the interest of Indian companies in taking a significant stake in protecting the joint development of mines especially potash mines in Belarus. He also said that Indian pharmaceutical companies today have only a very small percentage of the Belarus market and he hoped that they can expand their share of the Belarus market in terms of pharmaceuticals. He recognizes Belarus’ competence in small hydro projects and invited them to look at the opportunities in India in this regard. Thank you. Manoj?

Manoj Kumar Bharti, India’s Ambassador to Belarus: I think most of the issues that have been covered in these meetings in the morning have been spoken about by Secretary West and the press secretary. I would like to say a few things in general about the situation in Belarus and how it is appropriate time for the visit and how it is a new beginning for faster growth track. Belarus is a very fertile place for anything to do with science and technology. There is 100% literacy here, very high level of technical education…is granted here. And you can see the industry is full of innovations. Such institutions are giving new ideas almost every year which are being translated into industrial product and it is a very good idea for the Indian industry to do a recce to find out what new technologies could be adopted for Indian situations. DRTO has been doing a lot of cooperation in terms of powder, metallurgy and optical instruments but now there is time also to implement these projects in India because of these Make in India projects have come up. Belarus has been chosen as one of the 25 countries from where defense technology can be taken in India. This is one area.

The other is lot of energy projects, dairy projects which are there in Belarus because Belarus is known for its dairy products but these factories, these manufacturing units are almost 40 years old. They all need renovation and we feel that Indian companies are well-suited to provide renovation of these factories at a much cost effective manner and with latest technology. One example has already been shown here by BHEL’s new project. The project was aimed at 120 megawatt but after construction the plant for the full cycle of 12,000 hours has overreached its capacity. It has run at 130 plus megawatt. So Belarusians are extremely happy with what they have seen as a prowess of Indian industries to deliver and this is one area where we would like more and more projects to come in few of these $100 million line of credit announced by the government.

The third area where we need to focus is the beauty of this country. I feel that this country should be exposed to the Indian film industry and I would like more and more Indian producers and directors to come to Belarus and start using this land. This will also help in increasing tourism both ways from India to Belarus and from Belarus to India. By the way tourism from Belarus to India has been increasing at a very healthy rate. 2014 we issued about 8900 visas which was about 17% higher than the previous year and even before that it was once again about 21% higher. So this also shows that there is an increasing people to people level contact and the interest of people in Indian culture, Indian dance, Indian music is very, very evident here. There are hundreds of classes being run by those who have learnt their wares in India like ICICIscholarships and other things. They come back here and start running classes, not only in Minsk but in smaller, smaller towns. These are potential areas where we can enhance people to people relationship.

The other area of cooperation is already reached, is going to be reached today by academic cooperation. What we need is more of skill development. In 50 districts of what is called a rayon in Belarus there are 20 skill related institutions which teach people simple school pass-out people teach them about simple things like plumbing, electrician’s job; every job here is in skill sector. It will be a good idea for these institutions to take their technology to India. Thank you very much.

The President is going to inaugurate the bust of Mahatma Gandhi in the Belarus State University. This is a first such event that is happening in Belarus. I feel that this is also opportune place because the university is seen – it is basically visited by thousands of young people, about 17,000 people are registered with Belarus State University and all these people will get a first hand experience of – and messages of Mahatma Gandhi and and incentives from that message. So this once again is a very long term dream that we had and it's coming to fruition.

Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): Good. In terms of the program for the day after the inauguration of the Mahatma Gandhi statue there will be a call on the President by the Prime Minister of Belarus, after which there will be reception at which she will meet a cross section of the Belarus society and the Indian community. Right anything?

Question: There are Indian students in the Belarus State University?

Manoj Kumar Bharti, India’s Ambassador to Belarus: There are four medical universities in Belarus and combined strength of Indian students in medical colleges is about 150. Though there are engineering colleges, agricultural colleges but there are no Indian students there as of now.

Question: Okay. I have another question actually say there's a roadmap my point is that after 2015 election the European Union has imposed a sanction on Belarus. Whether the sanction would be any impediment for improving the relationship in all respects within Belarus?

Mr. Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): You know Belarus is looking for new partners and it’s looking to add new dimension to old trusted partners. So as I have said that we have very strong bilateral base. The President again, they talked about how the generic name for a tractor in Punjab had become Belarus in the 60s during the days of the Green Revolution and now it is time to add a new dimension to this relationship. Naturally if some doors are closed to some countries then other doors open. So I don't see this as an impediment.

Question: The President had started his initial statement with a word called there was skepticism about the visit, you said in the restricted meeting he had said so, (inaudible) we saw a live portion of some of the initial meetings.

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President: Which President? President of Belarus?

Question: Yes, President of Belarus….

Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): I don't recall this at all.

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President: Skepticism about the visit?

Question: Yes.

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President: None of our notes reflect that.

Question: Then you have missed. We have noticed. It was recorded at five feet…

Mr. Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary(West): No, no I think you should recheck your recording. I think it was a reference to – also there was a reference to the car incident.

Question: President of Belarus. In his first statement he started with it.

Mr. Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): I don't think he used that word.

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President: He used right on Belarus TV or on…

Question: On the media centre there itself.

Mr. Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): You can check if you have it then there is no doubt. You can always…

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President : It was live from our cameras or their cameras?

Question: From their camera they were showing…

Mr. Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): So you don't have the tape?

Question: We don't have.

Mr. Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): No he certainly didn't use that. We were all there. None of us heard that. I think there is some misreading.

Question: A lady was interpreting in English. We could not understand in…

Mr. Navtej Singh Sarna, Secretary (West): No, no there was – this was not used at all. In fact he started off by – as far as I have it he started off in fact by recalling earlier meeting. He appreciated India’s relationship, friendship. Yeah, and we can multiply this relationship very fast. There is no problem in political and diplomatic relations. So if you have please filed misreading, please re-file.

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President : Please don't make me say no again. Is that all? Any other questions?