Business news

According to the ministry, the event aims to raise the investment attractiveness of the dairy industry, promote competitiveness of Belarusian dairy products and help penetrate new sales markets. The fact that the forum will bring together about 100 participants from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Poland, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Romania is one of the peculiarities of the event. These3 include civil servants, scientists, manufacturers and businessmen.

The forum will have four sections: “Raising the export potential of the Belarusian dairy industry”, “Technical and technological conditions of the penetration of new sales markets”, Experience of the penetration of new sales markets” and “Quality of Milk is an important element of the export potential”. Belarusian participants of the forum will hold talks with foreign wholesales companies, foreign guests will see the best ideas of Belarusian manufacturers and establish contacts with potential partners.

According to head of the main department for foreign economic activities at the Agriculture and Food Ministry Alexei Bogdanov, the Belarusian agricultural sector has ambitious plans this year. “We are planning to raise the output of milk by 0.5 million tonnes. By the way, in 2014 the production of milk in certain agricultural enterprises reached 6.7 million tonnes in 2014,” the representative of the ministry noted. He remarked that the marketability of milk in Belarus reached 90.1% for the first time this year.

According to the International Dairy Federation, Belarus is among top five exporters of dairy products in the world. The country accounts for 4-5% of the global export of milk. Belarus shares the third place in the export of butter with Australia (10% of the global export), the country is ranked fifth in the world in the export of cheese and skimmed milk powder (5.9% and 4.2% respectively). Thanks to the timely upgrade of the facilities producing dry dairy products and the application of innovative technologies, Belarus is among the three biggest exporters of dry whey in the world.

“In monetary terms dairy products account for 68.2% of Belarus’ agricultural export. The main exports are cheeses (30%), skimmed milk powder (17%), butter (16%), whole milk powder (6%), quark (5%),” Alexei Bogdanov noted. The export of cheese accounts for over 20% of the country’s revenues from the export of dairy products.

Traditionally Russia is the main trade partner of Belarus. Belarusian products are also exported to Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other CIS countries.