UK buys $2.5m worth of sawn timber via Belarusian commodity exchange

Almost 5,000m3 of sawn timber to the tune of $2.5 million was sold to the United Kingdom at a special trading session held by the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE), BUCE’s spokesperson Roman Yaniv told BelTA.

That was the first session to sell timber products to the UK market featuring offers with several delivery points. According to Roman Yaniv, since December 2020 BUCE has used this mechanism in trading with Chinese companies, which helped boost export of Belarusian goods to China significantly.

“The practice of selling timber products with several delivery points has proven highly effective in terms of boosting our export to China. As a result, sales of Belarusian products to that country surged fourfold to $18.9 million. This is why BUCE decided to start using this mechanism to sell products to other promising markets,” Roman Yaniv explained.

In the past six months, the UK and China were one of the fastest growing export markets for BUCE. Supplies of Belarusian sawn timber to the UK skyrocketed by 11 times to $12.2 million over H1 2020 and sales of wood stakes soared by 16 times to $3.7 million. “In late April, the UK started buying the vet-blue semi-finished leather product made by Belarusian tanneries. In just two months, the sum of transactions in this product exceeded $740,000 and it continues growing fast,” Roman Yaniv said.

Founded in 2004, the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange conducted its first trading session in June 2005. BUCE is one of the largest commodity exchanges in Eastern Europe. Its main function is to assist Belarusian enterprises with export and foreign companies with entering the Belarusian market. BUCE sells a wide range of metal, forestry, and agricultural products, industrial and consumer goods.

As of 1 June, there were 67 companies from the UK accredited at BUCE. They primarily traded in forest products and agricultural products.