MINSK, 2 August (BelTA) – Belarus' export of building materials rose by almost 20% in H1 2021, Architecture and Construction Minister Ruslan Parkhamovich said at a press conference to discuss the performance of the construction industry in H1 2021 on 2 August, BelTA has learned.
“The export of building materials rose by about 20% in H1 2021. Traditionally, 40% to 95% of the output (depending on an enterprise) is bound for export. We see growth across some commodities. Export of cement and crushed stone has been gaining momentum. Export of glass, ceramic tiles, glass wool has increased significantly," Ruslan Parkhamovich said.
As for sales markets, he noted: "Some time ago Russia was our key market for all building materials accounting for about 90% of our total export. Today Russia's share hovers around 60 to 40. The Russian Federation does not exceed 60%. We gave diversified into other neighboring markets. About 15% of the total export goes to Poland, about 15% - Ukraine, a little less - to Lithuania and Latvia. We are also tapping into more distant markets such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. We will continue to diversify our exports so that in the event of any changes in market trends we could respond painlessly and quickly and shift our priorities elsewhere.”
According to the minister, the Belarusian Architecture and Construction Ministry sees Hungary as one of the most promising markets. “The country has launched many projects to build industrial facilities, auto companies. Work is underway on a nuclear power plant. We are eyeing this market and have recently had talks with our ambassador in Hungary,” he said.
Ruslan Parkhamovich also talked about rental housing projects. “About 130,000 m2 of rental housing is commissioned annually in the country today. In my opinion, this is a critically low result. I believe that we need to drastically step up efforts on this front,” he stressed.
According to the minister, the government set up a working group which is to make proposals on rental housing construction by the end of the summer. “We plan to change the concept a little bit. We are looking carefully into the practices used in the neighboring countries. For example, we are considering a concept such as a revenue house, a rental house, in order to make such projects interesting for commercial developers,” he added.
