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This was stated by Andrey Slepnev, Minister in charge of Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission, speaking during the session "EAEU contribution to developing the Union States: how to reach priority growth rates?" held at the Gaidar Forum 2022.

Looking back on the last year, Andrey Slepnev noted the impressive performance in the field of building up the Union’s internal agenda. In particular, this entailed joint work on climate issues – and it will not progress without common actions, developing technologies and creating uniform regulation, the Minister is assured. Besides, he paid attention to significant progress in developing e-trade system, activities on coupling with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative in relation to transport corridors, intensifying technical dialogue with the European Commission as well as involving Uzbekistan as the Observer State at the Union in the EAEU projects.

"It seems clear that there is already a request for regional integration, the idea of the Greater Eurasian partnership and realization that a reliable economic development program is hard to be implemented alone under current conditions", Andrey Slepnev stressed.

According to the Minister, although the Union’s GDP still decelerates as opposed to a number of other major economies, but this growth is more reliable and better withstands the impact of crises. And if one looks at the trade statistics, then 2021 has become the year of records. According to the EEC estimates, trade with third countries amounted to 833 bln US dollars having increased by 13.2% compared to the pre-pandemic 2019. Moreover, it's not just the well-established market conditions - the quantum of trade showed growth as well. Historical trade volumes with China are expected to reach 165 bln US dollars (an increase of 23.6% by 2019).

In turn, mutual trade increased by notable 18.5% by 2019 (increased to 73 bln US dollars), while the share of non-resource non-energy exports in it amounted to almost 70%.

"The existence of preferential agreements, particularly economic unions - it is this system that is mobilized to maintain and increase growth in challenging times", concluded the EEC Minister in charge of Trade. He believes that the trend towards regionalization has become actually non-alternative for all major global players today.

"There are several specific measures that can give immediate result. The first one has been tested by the Russian Federation and concerns the currency control liberalization. If we adopt such decisions at the Union level, of course, it will be a huge incentive for increasing mutual trade", Andrey Slepnev explained. "Rejecting the rudiments in the regulatory system will lead to a one-and-a-half-fold increase in the volume of the EAEU internal trade in the next couple of years".

The discussion moderated by Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev, Rector of the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade, was attended by Aleksey Overchuk, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation and Member of the EEC Council.