MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st July, 2023) Belarus and Nicaragua have signed an agreement to abolish visas, as well as approved a roadmap for cooperation in agriculture, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
The agreements were signed during the visit of Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik to Nicaragua, where he met with Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada. During the meeting, the sides discussed "the whole range of issues" in bilateral relations, including joint economic projects and industrial cooperation, the ministry tweeted.
During the meeting, the sides signed an intergovernmental agreement on the mutual abolition of visas, an intergovernmental agreement on the establishment of a joint commission on trade and economic cooperation, as well as approved a roadmap for cooperation in agriculture, the ministry said.
Aleinik said Thursday that Minsk could participate in large-scale infrastructure projects in Nicaragua.
"Our Nicaraguan counterparts shared their ambitious plans for infrastructure development. There are plans to build a railroad line that will connect the two oceans � the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans �and there are plans to build a canal that will also connect the two oceans in the future. Of course, these are very large-scale projects that will require a lot of equipment, a lot of competencies. And we have agreed in the preliminary plan to establish cooperation," the minister told the Belarus-1 broadcaster.
Moncada said during a visit to Minsk in March that Belarus could participate in the construction of the Nicaragua Canal, which could become an alternative to the Panama Canal.
The cost of the project to build the Nicaragua Canal was estimated at $50 billion. The length of the canal would be almost 280 kilometers (174 miles), the depth - about 27 meters (88 feet) and the width would vary between 226-530 meters. Some 5,100 ships are expected to pass through the canal per year, and the journey would not take more than 30 hours.
