The economic integration program between Russia and Belarus, initialed by the countries in early September, but not publicly disclosed, is designed for a year and a half and includes a partial unification of the two economic systems starting from January 2021, Kommersant reported citing a source in the government.
Press secretary of the Russian Prime Minister Oleg Osipov confirmed the information to TASS.
The integration plan would include a unified tax code, a foreign trade system and a civil code, an amalgamated accounting of property and similar social guarantees, and an almost joint banking supervision system, but with two central banks, a single regulator of oil, gas and electricity markets along with a harmonized state regulation of industries.
"This degree of integration is higher than in the EU, in fact as far as the economy goes it resembles more of a confederate state starting from 2022, the newspaper wrote. Moreover, it is unlikely to be completely equal for the parties. The Russian economy is 29 times larger than Belarus’. Given that Belarusian GDP in 2018 was 3.4% of Russia's GDP, implementing the plan by 2021, the fully state-owned economy of Belarus could be "absorbed" by the Russian economy at the management level, Kommersant wrote. There are few details in the program. The bulk of the parties’ plans are to submit roadmap proposals to each other on November 1, 2019, prepare legislative steps for integration by the end of 2020, and start working in a joint mode from January 1, 2021 on a majority of issues," TASS says.
"The most important thing is combining the tax systems of both countries. It is assumed that a single tax code will be adopted in the Union State of Russia and Belarus by April 1, 2021, Kommersant wrote. However, at the moment it is impossible to say when exactly the project would become fully operational, the newspaper wrote."
