Belarusian Commodity Exchange to help Belarus, Russia's Penza Oblast to replace imports

According to Oksana Kharitonovich, the main efforts will be focused on expanding the use of the BUCE industrial and consumer goods platform. Its functionality makes it possible to quickly find suppliers of import-substituting products and conclude deals with them. At the same time, as the experience of interaction with other regions of the Russian Federation has shown, the most active users of the B2B exchange platform are small and medium-sized businesses.

"Companies from 19 regions of Russia makes use of the platform of industrial and consumer goods for import replacement purposes. These are mainly small and medium-sized businesses, which via the exchange get access to the large Belarusian enterprises, and can also trade with other Russian regions as part of transit transactions. In January-October of this year, the trade of residents of the Russian Federation on our electronic platform increased by 1.6 times in value terms year-on-year. Penza Oblast has made no transactions yet while the neighboring Ryazan Oblast has already exceeded last year's figure by 44%.

Therefore, together with the Penza Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Export Support Center, we will encourage local entrepreneurs to do exchange trade in import-substituting products. Agreements in this regard have already been reached. We have accredited all Belarusian industrial flagships and major enterprises of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors and the energy industry. So there will certainly be common ground,” Oksana Kharitonovich noted.