Russia among most active users of BUCE import substitution platform
Over the four months of operation of the import substitution platform at the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE), companies from the Russian Federation were among the most active users of the exchange trading platform, ensuring not only the highest volume of transactions among non-resident participants but also coming close to the indicators for some regions of Belarus, BelTA learned from the press service of the BUCE.
According to the analytical report prepared by the BUCE specialists, in June-September 2022, Russian companies concluded 165 transactions for the sale and purchase of import-substituting products for a total of Br8.5 million. For comparison, the figures for Mogilev Oblast was Br8.7 million. Among the most popular groups of goods with the Russians were textile products, electrical products and synthetic casing for food products.
According to the BUCE, the demand for the exchange platform among participants from Russia is connected not only with the urgent topic of import substitution, but also with the functional features of the Belarusian trading platform, allowing to enter into transactions with companies from Belarus, as well as with residents of other countries, using the exchange as a hedging tool.
“It is noteworthy that a significant share of transactions made by Russian companies on the import substitution platform are the so-called ‘transit transactions', in which both the seller and the buyer are non-residents of the Republic of Belarus. Russians are attracted to the Belarusian trading platform thanks to the convenient search for the necessary goods and their suppliers, as well as a much lower level of risk compared to traditional aggregator sites serving the B2B segment. Apparently, this is why the transaction amounts are sometimes quite large. For example, the largest transit deal for import-substituting products concluded between two Russian residents was the purchase of cotton fabric for almost Br2 million in equivalent. However, such deals are still rare, and most Russian bidders use the import substitution platform for small operational purchases,” the BUCE press service said.
The BUCE currently features 39,500 active bids for sale and 2,600 bids for purchase of import-substituting goods. The total amount of transactions exceeds Br75.5 million.