MINSK, 13 November (BelTA) – Plans are in place to supply Belarusian timber products and agricultural products to Austria via commodity exchange. Such an agreement was reached during the B2B talks between a delegation of the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUTB) and representatives of the Austrian business community in the Austrian capital on 12 November, BUTB spokesman Roman Yaniv told BelTA.
The talks were held on the sidelines of the Austrian-Belarusian business forum in Vienna. “The Austrian side was most interested in timber and oilseed derived products. BUTB has already sold these goods to the European Union. Since the beginning of the year, the export of sawproducts through BUTB reached $230 million, and that of rapeseed oil - $12 million. These commodities are expected to generate an increase in the export via BUTB to Austria,” Roman Yaniv noted.
The list of products will be expanded in the future. A number of Austrian companies have expressed their willingness to buy waste paper and building materials via the commodity exchange. There is a significant potential for cooperation in public procurement in terms of supply of equipment and medicines to Belarus,” Chairman of the BUTB Board Aleksandr Osmolovsky said.
BUTB is considering the possibility of accrediting a stockbroker in Austria who will represent the exchange in this market. This move is expected to increase the number of Austrian bidders and the volume of transactions. Thirteen Austrian companies are now accredited at BUTB. In 2018, they made $766,000 worth of exchange transactions.
