14 May, Vitebsk /Sergey Kochetov - BELTA/. Railway passenger traffic between Belarus and Latvia may be opened in 2011. This was announced today to journalists in Vitebsk by the Minister of Transport and Communications of Belarus, Ivan Shcherbo, as reported by a BELTA correspondent. In Vitebsk, the minister is participating in a republican seminar dedicated to energy saving issues in the organizations of the Ministry of Transport. "I cannot definitively assure that such traffic will be opened precisely next year, but we are actively working in this direction together with our Latvian colleagues, and appropriate instructions have been given to Belarusian Railways and the Latvian railway administration," said Ivan Shcherbo. Furthermore, this issue is being actively processed by the Belarusian-Latvian commission on trade and economic cooperation, which is headed by the transport ministers of Belarus and Latvia. Various passenger route options are being considered, including Minsk-Riga and Gomel-Minsk-Riga, Ivan Shcherbo added. -0-

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