President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has declared that is ready to help the Russian side to buy Minsk wheel tractor plant (MZKT). In return, the Republic expects to receive the right to extract oil in Russia. On Thursday, April 21, reports “Interfax”.
“We buy from Russia in the year 22 million tons of oil, 25 billion cubic meters of gas. Well, you [Russia] give us in return, sell the field, so we can produce 10 million tons of oil from you,” he said in his annual message to the National Assembly.
Lukashenka underlined that in the USSR the Belarusians “extracted oil in Russia, as in the home country”. “Let’s make a deal: you help us in this respect, we meet you in this. Why no answer? Guess yourself”, he added.
The Russian company was interested in buying the factory, which produces chassis for military vehicles. The interest in the company acted with “rostech” and “Almaz-Antey”, but the negotiations, which lasted several years, were unsuccessful. In the summer of 2015 Lukashenko said that Belarus does not intend to privatize the state enterprise. As a result in March 2016 during his visit to Perm Motovilikhinskiye Zavody (release of reactive systems of volley fire) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has proposed to discontinue purchasing from the factory, and to manufacture the chassis on the Russian KAMAZ.
Belarusian MZKT manufactures construction equipment under the brand name Volat, and chassis for s-300 and S400 systems “Iskander”, “Hurricane”, “Smerch” and “Grad”. 90 percent of its products are exported to Russia.
