MINSK, 4 January (BelTA) – In January-November 2018 Belarus shipped agricultural products and food to 96 countries across the globe, BelTA learned from Aleksei Bogdanov, Head of the Central Office for Foreign Economic Activities of the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry.
According to the source, the number of countries buying Belarusian food has increased. In January-November 2018 Belarus shipped agricultural products and food to 96 countries, 11 countries more than in 2017.
Belarus exported $3.757 billion worth of food to Russia. In January-November 2018 the volume dropped by 3.2% in comparison with the same period of 2017. The share of the Russian market in Belarus' total food export dropped by 6.6 percentage points to 78.9%. Shipments were diversified to other target markets.
Belarus' overall CIS export (excluding Russia) rose by 35.8%. Belarus' export to Armenia rose by 41.4%, with export to Kazakhstan up by 120%, export to Uzbekistan up by 100%, and export to Ukraine up by 15.5%. Non-CIS export grows fast: 77% up in January-November 2018. The total sum was close to $0.5 billion. The share of remote countries in the total export reached 10%.
In January-November 2018 Belarus' export to China increased by 4.4 times to reach $75 million. The export of dairy and meat products was on the rise as well as the export of flax fiber, rapeseed oil, starch, confectionery and pastry products, chocolate, and other ready foods. Two Belarusian companies are now certified to export beef to China – OOO Veles-Meat and OAO Mogilev Meat Processing Plant. As many as 50 dairy companies and five poultry factories – Agrokombinat Dzerzhinskiy, Vitebsk Broiler Poultry Factory, Poultry Plant Druzhba, SZAO Servolux, and OAO Smolevichi Broiler – are certified for export to China. Certification work for the right to sell dairy baby food, ready meat products, and expand the choice of poultry exports to China is supposed to be finished in Q1 2019.
Vigorous certification work is in progress for the right to export food to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). “We've already received five veterinary certificates for all the animal husbandry products. We are now working to get our meat and dairy enterprises certified for compliance with the Halal system. We would like a number of companies to finish the certification process before the Gulfood expo in Dubai in February,” said Aleksei Bogdanov.
