MINSK, 25 July (BelTA) – Agricultural products accounted for 95% of the exchange trade between Belarus and Switzerland, Chairman of the Board of the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE) Aleksandr Osmolovsky said as he met with Hermann Alexander Beyeler, BelTA learned from the BUCE press service.
In H1 2022, agricultural products accounted for over 95% of the exchange trade between Belarus and Switzerland. The latter is a net importer of Belarusian goods, since all 16 Swiss companies accredited on the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange act exclusively as buyers. “In January-June of this year, the transactions made by the Swiss companies on the exchange platform amounted to about $6 million. Of these, more than $5 million came from the export of Belarusian rapeseed oil and wet blue leather. This shows a high demand for Belarusian agricultural products on the Swiss market and a significant potential for scaling up the exchange trade between the countries. The commodities that have the biggest potential on the exchange include milk powder and whey, cattle meat, beet molasses. All the biggest producers of these commodities are represented at BUCE; most of these companies are certified to ship their products to Europe. Moreover, if some product is not available in the trading system, buyers are encouraged to place an application and BUCE will suggest a number of suppliers. In other words, the exchange today is not just a trading platform, but also a marketing tool that facilitates business transactions inside the country and abroad,” Aleksandr Osmolovsky stressed.
According to Hermann Alexander Beyeler, agricultural products are definitely not the only commodity group that is in demand in Switzerland. In particular, before the sanctions were introduced, one of the companies owned by the businessman had purchased lumber on the exchange, and now it is busy exploring other commodities in order to return to the bidding process. Hermann Alexander Beyeler is confident that exchange trade between Belarus and Switzerland will have a good dynamics despite temporary difficulties and artificially created barriers, and he, as a proponent of Belarusian business interests in Switzerland and Swiss business interests in Belarus, will contribute to this in every possible way.
