K, Canada interested in buying Belarusian timber via stock exchange
MINSK, 21 May (BelTA) - British and Canadian businesses are interested in buying Belarusian timber at the stock exchange, Roman Yaniv, the spokesman for the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE), told BelTA following the first Belarusian-Canadian-British webinar “Timber: Doing Business in Belarus”.
The event focused on prospects of launching regular deliveries of Belarusian timber products to the UK and Canada. The webinar gathered more than 40 representatives of the Canadian and British business communities, as well as officials and experts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, the Bellesbumprom Concern, Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange, Bellesexport company, and the Belarusian Forest Company (BFC).
Participants in the webinar examined the export potential of the Belarusian forestry complex, rules and procedures of selling Belarusian forest products on foreign markets, logistics infrastructure and the experience of supplying timber to the UK and Canada. “The participants of the event also discussed specific features of exchange trade in forest products and key advantages of the Belarusian stock exchange platform: control over transaction execution, transparent pricing, lack of intermediaries, and a possibility of using trade finance instruments. As a result of the webinar, a number of British and Canadian companies expressed interest in getting accreditation with the BUCE in order to take part in the exchange trade in timber and wood chips,” Roman Yaniv said.
So far, the BUCE has accredited 63 companies from the UK and six from Canada.
The webinar was organized by the Canada Eurasia Russia Business Association (CERBA) and the Belarusian embassies in Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland with support from the UK Timber Trade Federation.
The Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange was set up in 2004. It conducted its first auctions in June 2005. The BUCE is one of the largest commodity exchanges in Eastern Europe, the main function of which is to assist Belarusian enterprises with exporting products and foreign companies with entering the Belarusian market. The exchange sells a wide range of metal, forestry, agricultural products, industrial and consumer goods.
