MINSK, 28 November (BelTA) - The Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE) and the Indian Chamber of International Business (ICIB) have agreed on a preliminary list of areas of cooperation in exchange trade between Belarus and India, BelTA learned from the BUCE press service.
The parties plan to focus on attracting representatives of Indian business to the Belarusian exchange platform to make import and export deals with goods in demand in both countries. For India, these are timber, flax fiber, synthetic yarns, and plastic products, while for Belarus they are rice, food raw materials, fruit and vegetable products, and cotton yarn.
The parties are also considering the possibility of accrediting ICIB as an exchange broker, which will let this organization trade on the BUCE on behalf of other Indian companies - primarily ICIB members.
These agreements were reached following the meeting of Olga Gorelik, First Deputy Chairperson of the Board of BUCE, with ICIB President Manpreet Singh as part of the international multi-sectoral exhibition MÜSIAD Expo in Istanbul. According to Olga Gorelik, the Indian market can play a key role in the development of Belarus’ exchange trade with the countries of South Asia, becoming BUCE’s “outpost” in the region.
“We have started to seriously study the Indian market relatively recently, but certain results have already been achieved. Today, four Indian companies are accredited at the exchange. One of them concluded the first deal for the purchase of sawn timber in early November. Taking into account the demand for Belarusian timber products on the part of Indian consumers, we would like to scale up this area and ensure regular exports. ICIB's assistance will undoubtedly make this task easier for us,” the first deputy chairperson of the Board of BUCE said.
The parties also discussed the prospects of using the exchange mechanism to supply Belarusian flax fiber to India. The advantage for Indian importers will be that the leading producers of these products are accredited at BUCE and are ready to put them up for trading on a weekly basis. According to BUCE, flax fiber is currently exported through the exchange to only one country - Türkiye. In November, three pilot deals were concluded with a total volume of 53 tonnes of flax.