MINSK, 8 February (BelTA) – Belarus and Russia have kept the food supply balance sheets for 2021 at the 2020 level, Aleksei Bogdanov, Head of the Central Office for Foreign Economic Activities of the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry, told a press conference on 8 February, BelTA has learned.
“Every year we sign food supply balance sheets with Russia so that we could better plan our exports and investments. The balance sheets for 2021 are practically at the level of 2020. It was difficult to make plans because 2020 was an unconventional year of the pandemic, with many distorting factors influencing mutual trade. Therefore, a decision was made to keep the volumes at the 2020 level and to move on from there,” Aleksei Bogdanov noted.
According to him, the balance sheets for meat and dairy products and sugar were almost completely fulfilled by both Belarus and Russia in 2020. "We underperformed across some positions and overperformed on others but these things depend on the market trends ,” Aleksei Bogdanov noted.
Russia accounted for 74.4% of Belarus' agricultural exports in 2020, down by 5.3% (to $4.3 billion) compared to 2019. According to Aleksei Bogdanov, the decline of Russia's share was due to the diversification of Belarusian food exports.
