Chinese Companies Continue to Increase Sawn Timber Purchases via the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange

According to the Belarus News Agency (BelTA), the country’s state-owned news agency, between January and July, Chinese companies increased their purchases of sawn timber through the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE) by approximately 2.5 times when compared to the same time period in 2022.

“Chinese companies purchased more than 195,000 cubic meters of sawn timber [between January and July]. A total of 54,000 cubic meters, or 28% of the total, were sold using the mechanism of target transactions introduced at BUCE in June 2023 in order to make exchange trading more attractive for foreign participants,” BUCE said.

These and other statistics were cited by a BUCE delegation during a presentation of the Belarusian commodity exchange platform at the international timber forum recently held in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, China. The forum brought together the largest timber importers who use the container port of Taicang to ship goods from all over the world, including Belarus.

BUCE noted that “when working through the exchange, buyers from China are offered the one-stop-shop principle that suggests receiving goods, logistics, settlements in yuan, control over the execution of transactions, and consulting support in Chinese. All this helps to attract Chinese residents to exchange trading.” Currently, there are 131 Chinese companies accredited with BUCE, 30 more than when 2023 began.