Meeting with Lukashenko’s participation discusses creation of port facilities and sale of potash fertilisers
The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has held a meeting today on the creation of port facilities and on the draft decree on the sale of potash fertilisers
Before the start of the discussion, the Head of State noted, “War is war, but economy is the basis of everything, as I warned you many times.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko recalled that in January 2023, the issue of creating port facilities for transshipment of Belarusian cargo was already discussed in almost the same composition as today.
“At that time it was mainly about potash fertilisers,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted. “But this is natural, the volumes are the largest. Today we will talk about this, and also touch on the issue of oil products. The areas of work have been identified, the necessary decisions have been made. It’s time to synchronise watches and, if necessary, correct and agree on our further actions and plans.”
According to the President, the situation and the foreign policy situation are developing extremely dynamically today, “However, we must pay tribute, the Belarusian economy continues to work and find new opportunities in these difficult conditions. We must promptly respond to all challenges and guarantee the delivery of export cargo to buyers. The key point is the speed of decision making.”
In this regard, the President asked about the stage at which the issue of creating Belarus’ own capacities for sea transportation is, whether there are concrete results in this direction, which ports are involved in the transportation of potash fertilisers and oil products, and what are the problems. Another question from the Head of State: is there an understanding of how much potassium we can transship through the Russian ports on acceptable terms?
“It’s clear that we left our traditional ports against our will and are working on the transshipment of all our cargo, which is about 20 million tonnes, in all ports of the Russian Federation,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stated. “I was also informed about alternative options for co-operation in the North-West region of Russia. This should be the main issue. Essentially, we have two possible options, each with its own advantages and disadvantages (I mean Murmansk and Primorsk). It is necessary to finally decide what we need: to build a terminal, a port or upgrade any existing facility, and immediately begin work. As far as I know, we are building and modernising facilities near Leningrad while near Murmansk we are still dragging out.”
The agenda of the current meeting also includes a draft decree on the sale of certain types of goods for export.
The Head of State demanded substantive reports on all these issues, “I want to hear from you what particularly has been done to date. Because we talked about this more than once, I repeat once again, when we met, we had a conversation. So what has been done to date? What are the shortcomings, who and what hinders?”
The sanctions imposed by the West against Belarus have affected the existing logistics. After the transshipment of Belarusian cargo through the Baltic ports became impossible, the Russian port infrastructure came to the fore for Belarus.
In February 2022, presidents Aleksandr Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin agreed on the construction of Belarus’ own port terminal. Today, interaction is carried out with almost two dozen Russian ports. Belarus sends oil products, potash and nitrogen fertilisers, as well as metal and woodworking products through them.
In early January 2023, Aleksandr Lukashenko, at a meeting on the export of our goods, demanded to speed up the construction of Belarusian ports in Russia, “At least what you asked me to solve at the level of the Russian President in order to open ports for us – I believe that all issues have been resolved. The question now is just to start shipping in these ports. Although we have already started shipping something. We need to build these ports faster, bring them to a certain level and trade through our own ports.”
At the same time, after the meeting, Belarus’ First Deputy PM Nikolai Snopkov told reporters that Belarus does not experience problems with transshipment of goods through seaports, there is enough infrastructure for this, “Today, we provide the necessary port infrastructure for all Belarusian exports (with oil products and potash fertilisers accounting for 80 percent of these). We have enough port infrastructure to export the entire volume of the exported goods. It is possible to develop further [our own port infrastructure] if it is interesting from an economic point of view. In principle, the port as a business model is fine. This is a cost effective product. I think that we will consider further and form new port opportunities of the already Belarusian national port with all the ensuing opportunities and prospects.”
