Vitebsk plans to establish twinning relations and sign cooperation agreements with the cities of Lublin (Poland) and Kosice (Slovakia) in 2018, Vitebsk Mayor Viktor Nikolaikin said during the session of the Vitebsk City Council of Deputies, BelTA has learned.

"Now we are in the middle of concluding the agreements on establishing twinning relations with Kosice and Lublin and are working on the possibility of signing similar documents with the Estonian Tartu and Lithuanian Panevezys," Viktor Nikolaikin said.

In 2017 Vitebsk established partnerships with Russia's Irkutsk, Volgograd and Saratov. All in all, the regional center maintains cooperation with 25 sister cities from 10 countries, including Russia, Latvia, China, Germany, Sweden and Israel. In addition to the expansion of human contacts, this helps strengthen the positions of the Vitebsk enterprises on foreign markets, increase the flow of currency proceeds to the city, Viktor Nikolaikin noted.

At the moment 670 enterprises and organizations of Vitebsk are engaged in foreign economic activities; trade relations are maintained with partners from 90 countries. As a result of the effort to diversify the markets, Russia's share now accounts for 68.6% of the total export of Vitebsk-based companies, down 10% as against the same period a year earlier.

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