The Belarusian agro-industrial complex continues increasing its production and export volumes, despite the current COVID-19 pandemic, declared the Head of the Main department of foreign economic activity at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Belarus, Alexei Bogdanov, on May 28.
According to the official, in the first quarter the general production volumes in the agricultural sector increased by 5.5%, and food exports increased by 9.8%.
In the first quarter of 2020, the foreign currency earnings totaled 1.4 bln USD, with the increase of more than 125 mln USD compared with the same period of 2019, which for the first time allowed to Belarusian farmers to increase the share of the agro-industrial complex in the general export structure to the record of 21.8%. The systematic work on export diversification that the Ministry has been realizing for a number of years, allowed reorienting the trade flows from the bear markets to more attractive ones with the least losses, A.Bogdanov said.
Also, he added that while the share of the Russian market decreased by 3.9%, the share of the CIS countries (excluding Russia) increased by 1.5%, and non-CIS countries — up 2.4%. The supplies to China increased in 2.4 times, the USA — up 14%, the European Union countries — up 54%, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — up more than 7 times each. In addition, Belarus managed to organize the deliveries to many new sales markets, including India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Oman, Myanmar, Guinea, and Niger.
In 2020, Belarus plans to export agricultural products and food at the sum of 5.7 bln USD, up 4.2% compared with 2019, the Head of the Department concluded.
