MINSK, May 3. /TASS/. Belarus eyes construction of its terminals in Russian ports for transshipment of their goods, Prime Minister of the country Roman Golovchenko said on Sunday on the air with the Belarus-1 TV Channel.
"Yes, we have determined categories of goods with the potential economic viability in engaging Russian ports. The point is not to prejudice the economics of enterprises from the standpoint of logistics," Golovchenko said. "Therefore, we are exploiting in detail issues of building our own port terminal in Russian ports," he noted.
Discipline working groups are considering these issues now, the Prime Minister said. "The Russian side expressed readiness to provide or at least to identify all the possible plots that will meet requirements raised by the Belarusian side," he added.
Implementation of such an investment project provides a certain guarantee that Belarusian goods will not stall somewhere en route, Golovchenko said. "It is critical to estimate logistics in this case because every dollar is on account when delivering goods," he added.
Minsk is currently discussing with Moscow the option of refocusing exports not merely for Belarusian oil products but also for fertilizers, lumber and machinery via Russian ports, the Belarusian Prime Minister said. Categories of goods were identified with potential economic viability of engaging Russian ports, he noted. "We are also discussing with Russian colleagues other goods Belarus currently exports through Baltic ports for their refocusing to Russian ones, similarly to oil products. These are fertilizers, machinery and lumber," Golovchenko said.
In February 2021, Russia and Belarus made the intergovernmental agreement on throughput of Belarusian petroleum products through Russian seaports. The agreement provides for transshipment of more than 9.8 mln tonnes of fuel oil, gasoline, gasoil and oils in 2021-2023. The country has already shipped over 220,000 tonnes of goods through Russian ports.