NUCLEAR POWER IN BELARUS AND WORLDWIDE
MINSK, 24 May (BelTA) - Belarusian manufacturers need to occupy the niches of the companies that left the Russian market, Belarusian First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov said at a joint sitting of the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus on 24 May, BelTA has learned.
“The government has set a task to occupy the niches of the companies that left the Russian market. We have doubled our presence for tractors and tractor units, increased it by 3 times for trailers and by 1.6 times for refrigerators and freezers. For a number of dairy products our share on the Russian market is 90%. The potential for increasing exports to Russia is huge,” Nikolai Snopkov said.
Today more than half of the exports to the Russian Federation go to just a few regions: Moscow Oblast and Moscow, Smolensk Oblast, St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, Bryansk Oblast and Kemerovo Oblast. “The task is to expand the regional coverage of supplies. As the president said: “Stop throwing just over the fence”. We need to increase cooperation with the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East, and we are actively doing this,” the first deputy prime minister said.
“Anticipating the question of dependence on one market, I will say that world practice shows that many countries supply up to 80% of their products to neighboring countries. For example, Canada to the United States, Mexico to the United States. The problem is not in the dependence on one market but in the long-term operation on this market,” Nikolai Snopkov said.
This year the industrial ministries and concerns are working on the export request for $2.2 billion from China. Half of it is food products. In January-March 2023 this request has been fulfilled by almost one third.
“Despite the achieved results, the risks in the foreign trade still remain and they require increased concentration at all levels. The effect of market factors is gradually weakening, including and above all on the Russian market: export prices are decreasing, while competition from China is increasing. In this connection the basic task is the structural transformation of the work of the industry to increase its competitiveness in foreign markets,” the first deputy prime minister said.
