Belarus’ economy minister comments on exports, competition in Russia, new markets

“At first, it looked like huge opportunities were opening up in the Russian market, and they indeed emerged,” Yuri Chebotar said. “But they opened up to all countries friendly to Russia, so we ended up facing an even tougher competition than before. Thus, today our main competitors on the Russian market are Turkish and Chinese producers. Nevertheless, we have significantly increased exports during this period. We had a trade surplus with this country both last year and the year before. We set the task to ramp up exports, because the Russian market is quite big, but certainly we will not focus just on this market,” the economy minister said.

Belarusian producers are also strengthening their positions in other markets. For example, exports to Asian markets grew 1.4 times, food supplies to China tripled in three years, though this seemed unrealistic in the past. Exports to Latin American countries have grown more than twice. According to the minister, Belarus is exploring new markets of the African region. “We have identified the key markets that will be used as hubs for supplying our products to other African countries. The relevant tasks for the current year are defined in the target plan down to specific goods,” he concluded.