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Belarus-China exchange trade at $7.5m in Q1 2021

MINSK, 14 April (BelTA) – The exchange trade between Belarus and China reached $7.5 million in Q1 2021, Chairman of the Board of the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE) Aleksandr Osmolovsky told BelTA.

On 14 April, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to Belarus Xie Xiaoyong visited BUCE. The visit demonstrates that the Chinese government and the embassy view trade via BUCE as important, Aleksandr Osmolovsky believes. “In the past two years, we have actively expanded exchange trading between Belarus and China. Sales of almost all Belarusian goods bound for China have increased. BUCE has developed several instruments to help Chinese companies access the Belarusian market in an easy, quick and effective way. Thanks to BUCE’s mechanisms, companies are able to find partners in the Belarusian market easier and sell and buy products faster,” Aleksandr Osmolovsky noted.

Belarusian companies not only sell their products to China, but also buy Chinese goods via BUCE. The most popular exports to China are sawn timber, rapeseed oil, and milk powder. There are plans to launch sales of Belarusian sugar to China on BUCE. In turn, Belarusian companies import metal products from China. The presence of Chinese companies on BUCE is increasing, both in terms of the number of participants and sales. “For example, there were no Chinese companies on BUCE in 2019, but in Q1 2021 there were already 40 Chinese companies and two Chinese brokers. As for Belarus-China exchange trade, the results are not that impressive yet, but we can already see that the trade is growing. For example, in 2020, Belarus-China exchange trade totaled $13.4 million and in Q1 2021, it reached $7.5 million. I believe that the exchange trade in 2021 will exceed last year’s results,” Aleksandr Osmolovsky stressed.

According to him, there are around 5,000 foreign companies from 63 countries registered at BUCE. “Unfortunately, we have started working with the Chinese market only recently. The EU countries traditionally top the list accounting for 82% of export deliveries via BUCE. Today’s visit of the Chinese ambassador is a significant event as it shows that BUCE plays a special role in Belarus-China trade and that China is interested in exchange trading because BUCE enables Chinese economic entities to find partners in Belarus and make transactions quickly and effectively,” Aleksandr Osmolovsky noted.

For his part, Ambassador Xie Xiaoyong pointed out that the Chinese-Belarusian cooperation have developed effectively and fruitfully despite the difficult epidemiological situation. “BUCE’s role in this is especially important during the pandemic, because companies can conduct transactions online, regardless of the epidemiological situation in the world. BUCE contributes to the diversification of trade between China and Belarus,” the ambassador stressed.

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