Belarus’ Grodno Oblast, India intend to develop cooperation

Belarusian Grodno Oblast and India intend to develop cooperation. This agreement was reached during a meeting between Chairman of the Grodno Oblast Executive Committee Vladimir Karanik and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of India to the Republic of Belarus Alok Ranjan Jha, BelTA has learned.

Speaking about the bilateral relations, Governor Vladimir Karanik noted that the main thing is to keep going towards the goals.

"A 3.5-fold increase in trade between Grodno Oblast and India is a decent result, but we believe that the potential of our cooperation is much greater. So the main thing is to maintain and build on this positive dynamics. The areas of cooperation are many. These include education. As it has been mentioned, the quality of education at Grodno Medical University in India was appreciated by more than 300 graduates, and 96% of them confirmed their diploma on the first try. The second [area of cooperation] is the real sector of the economy: pharmaceuticals, high technology, where we see opportunities for joint projects, and investment. It is very gratifying that the capacity building program in various fields has been offered both for our technical specialists and for public administration, which allows us to respond more quickly to the needs of the real sector of the economy, more clearly understand the rules of the game and the rules of doing business in India. This will help us further cooperation in the real sector of the economy," Vladimir Karanik said.

In his words, the region is mulling over twinning relations with the Indian state of Gujarat: “These are long-term relations of more than 20 years. Most Indian students of the medical university are residents of this state. We believe that the time has come for our cooperation to move to a qualitatively new level. We need to sign a comprehensive agreement on trade, economic, cultural, educational cooperation and to establish twinning relations.”
According to Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Belarus Alok Ranjan Jha, the prospects for cooperation are very good. “As Mr Governor mentioned during our meeting, the trade between India and Belarus has already grown significantly in the first nine months of this year. We are here to ensure an even greater increase in trade, in particular, by establishing twin relations with one of the states in India,” Alok Ranjan Jha said, adding that cooperation will be also developed in culture and education.

Speaking about his proposal to take part in the ITEC training program, Ambassador Alok Ranjan Jha pointed out: "This program helps India to share its technological innovations and developments with friendly countries (we believe Belarus is a friendly country). Belarus, on the one hand, will be able to improve the professional level of people in certain areas, and on the other hand, to establish ties between the peoples and promote cultural exchange."

After the meeting, Ambassador Alok Ranjan Jha and Governor Vladimir Karanik visited Grodno State Medical University and talked to the Indian students. After that, the participants of the meeting watched the movie within the framework of the Days of Indian Cinema in Grodno.