MINSK, 3 November (BelTA) – Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE) and the Istanbul Commodity Exchange (İstanbul Ticaret Borsası, İSTİB) will joint efforts to develop exchange trade in farm produce and timber, BelTA learned from the BUCE press service.
BUCE and İSTİB intend to join forces in order to increase the volume of mutual trade between Belarus and Türkiye concentrating on agricultural and woodworking products, the demand for which is consistently high in both countries. Negotiations on cooperation between the Belarusian and Turkish exchanges took place during a visit of a BUCE delegation to Istanbul to attend MUSIAD EXPO.
During the discussion of promising areas of inter-exchange cooperation, Irina Narkevich, Deputy Chairperson of the Board of BUCE, suggested raising awareness of the Turkish business community about the opportunities and advantages of using the exchange trading mechanism as an alternative option for doing business in Belarus. According to her, the lack of information is one of the main factors hindering the dynamic development of exchange trade between Belarus and Turkey.
"The Turkish market is very interesting for us both in terms of sales of Belarusian-made goods and imports of products in demand in Belarus. The exchange platform is an effective tool for establishing direct contacts between producers and consumers of the two countries, which will allow organizing regular trade in such highly liquid commodity items as lumber and dairy products. Moreover, Turkish companies are already buying these products on our trading platform, albeit in small quantities. Therefore, I believe that the number one task for the near future is to raise awareness of Turkish business, both large companies and SMEs. Of course, in this matter we count on the support and assistance of the Istanbul Stock Exchange, whose members are more than 10 thousand Turkish enterprises. For many of them, the exchange could become a gateway t the market of Belarus and the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union," Irina Narkevich noted.
The proposal of the Belarusian side was fully supported by İSTİB Vice President İlhan Koyunseven, who expressed readiness to inform Turkish companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange about the possibilities of working through the Belarusian exchange platform and to redirect to BUCE commercial requests from Turkish business interested in purchasing or selling goods in Belarus.
