Belarus Deputy Foreign Minister Alena Kupchyna suggested Belarus could be a gateway to the Eurasian market for Slovenian companies.

Slovenia is Belarus's traditional market, but political support to business cooperation is crucial, Kupchyna was quoted as saying by the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS), which organised today's conference together with the SPIRIT investment promotion agency and the Belarus chamber.

The meeting was held on the margins of a plenary session of the intergovernmental Slovenia-Belarus commission for cooperation in trade, economy, science and technology.

GZS head Samo Hribar Milič said he was happy to see political representatives of both countries at the business conference, saying political relations should also be enhanced to help business.

Hribar Milič noted that increasingly many Slovenian companies were active in Belarus, while Belarus business executives were increasingly inquiring about business conditions in Slovenia.

Tomaž Lovrenčič of the Foreign Ministry said business cooperation would be as successfully as political relations, which have seen a boost in recent months, when also the EU-Belarus relations improved.

Ante Milevoj, the head of GZS's centre for international business cooperation, highlighted Slovenia's pharmaceutical and chemical industries, car components manufacturing, energy and paper processing industry as areas of potential cooperation.

Deputy head of the Belarus National Agency of Investment and Privatization Mikhail Dashuk said Belarus's advantages included highly competitive IT sector, highly trained staff, as many as six free economic zones, a constantly improving business environment, high industrial potential and well-developed logistic system.

After the conference, business executives from the two countries held bilateral talks, GZS said.