Business news

9 Nov 2022

Belarus to offer peat, quartz to China

An archive photo

MINSK, 9 November (BelTA) – Belarus will offer new products to China – peat and quartz. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus to China Yuri Senko mentioned it in an episode of the project After the Fact: Lukashenko’s Decisions on BelTA’s YouTube channel.

Why is China’s market profitable?

According to statistics, China is home to about 400 million moderately prosperous citizens. The figure indicates a high purchasing power. China intends to raise the figure to 800 million people by the end of the current decade. “It is a very large market with great opportunities,” the ambassador stressed. “Chinese consumers can afford buying much more than they did a year or two years ago. The entire world, including Belarus, is open to China. Our enterprises are very actively exploring the Chinese market. We have all the opportunities for filling the appropriate market niches with Belarusian products and demonstrating their quality to Chinese customers.”

The ambassador also mentioned some other new and most promising projects, both sides are interested in and both sides intend to develop.

Medical equipment as a joint project

According to the ambassador, a facility to make medical diagnostics equipment has emerged in the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone. Chinese manufacturers have been present on the international market for a long time but Belarusian healthcare institutions did not use their products much because additional expenses and delivery costs were higher than those associated with European products. “But modern communications, methods of delivery and maintenance, the arrival of engineers for startup and commissioning involve little difficulty these days. Belarusian healthcare institutions are pleased to consider the possibility of importing more of such equipment to Belarus and the possibility of its manufacturing in the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone,” Yuri Senko said.

Belarusian peat for China

The ambassador pointed out that many countries across the globe are concerned about food security. He said: “Belarus offers to Chinese friends rather great opportunities for mining mineral resources, in particular, peat, which is necessary for agriculture today. About 9,000 peat deposits have been discovered in Belarus, including 88 ones already available for mining. Four Belarusian enterprises were accredited to sell processed peat products to Chinese customers in the last month alone. It is a new product we are going to offer to the Chinese market,” he said.

Promising quartz

Another useful mineral resource that Belarus has and that China may be potentially interested in is quartz. Negotiations between the embassy and a major quartz processing company took place at an international expo in Shanghai. “We handed over all the necessary materials for studying Belarusian opportunities. Belarus has quartz deposits, which can last for 70 years of active development,” Yuri Senko explained.

High demand for electric transport

Yuri Senko believes that sales of electric vehicles represent another interesting avenue of Belarus-China cooperation: “All the countries do it. China is a very active developer. In 2022 China will make and offer for sale about 5 million vehicles powered by electricity. Meanwhile, the entire world will make about 10 million electric vehicles. In other words, China makes virtually half of them on its own. We can very actively cooperate in this area since Belarus has cheap electricity of its own and electric transport will enjoy a very strong demand. The government is doing a lot to create the appropriate infrastructure and manufacture cars and light trucks.”

Promotion on digital platforms

“The Chinese market is very large. Everyone knows it well. Chinese buyers use Internet actively and make most of their purchases online using mobile phones. About 1 billion people use mobile Internet in China. Respectively we have to be present on all the digital platforms,” the ambassador is convinced.

Yuri Senko reminded that Belarus’ first digital platform in China is already operational. The possibility of opening seven other digital platforms where Belarusian enterprises will be able to offer their goods to Chinese customers is under consideration. “It is a modern opportunity for selling products not via retail chains but by using the option that is popular in China – digital marketplaces and online trade,” the ambassador noted.

Traditional Chinese medicine

Belarus actively examines the experience of application of traditional Chinese medicine methods and encourages the relevant competent organizations to operate in the country. Yuri Senko is convinced that this industry will grow in the future because the quality of this kind of healthcare is self-explanatory: the average life expectancy in China is 77-78 years.



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