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Some 100 Belarusian enterprises certified to export agricultural products to China
MOSCOW, 26 October (BelTA) – As many as 98 Belarusian enterprises are certified for shipping agricultural products to China. Of them 56 enterprises are milk-processing ones. Aleksei Bogdanov, Head of the Central Office for Foreign Economic Activities of the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry, mentioned the figures during an expert meeting held on 26 October to discuss ways to export more quality agricultural products from the Eurasian Economic Union to China. The expert meeting was held as part of the online forum on conjugating the Eurasian Economic Union and China’s Belt and Road initiative, BelTA has learned.
Aleksei Bogdanov noted that China is one of the top three importers of Belarusian agricultural products. Active work to certify Belarusian processing enterprises for deliveries to China began in 2015. The work has helped increase export from $0.3 million in 2015 to $131 million in 2019. The top Belarusian exports to China are meat products (44% of the total in cost terms), dairy products (40%), flax fiber (6%), and rapeseed oil (6%).
Belarus successfully develops deliveries by rail, including within the framework of the Belt and Road initiative. Thanks to that Belarus delivered 11 container trainloads of dairy powder products to China in 2018-2019.
The experts discussed prospects of increasing export deliveries of agricultural products of Eurasian Economic Union member states to China, new logistic solutions for exporting agricultural products, the problems the exporters face due to coronavirus-related restrictions, and measures to simplify the clearance of export cargoes and support the export of quality agribusiness products. Heads of sectoral government agencies of the Eurasian Economic Union member states, representatives of the largest Chinese agribusiness corporations СOFCO International and Beidahuang International, representatives of the business circles and the expert community of the Eurasian Economic Union and China took part in the meeting.
It was noted that a considerable untapped potential for exporting more agricultural products from the Eurasian Economic Union to China was available. The experts mentioned prospects of exporting cereals, soybeans, apples, vegetable oils, oil-bearing crops, confectionery products, alcohol beverages and non-alcohol beverages, cigarettes to China. China’s import of these promising commodities was estimated at $84.3 billion in 2019. The Eurasian Economic Union’s export of these commodities was only $3.25 billion.
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