Putin allowed Lukashenko to build a Belarusian port on the Russian coast
Western sanctions against the export of Belarusian potash fertilizers have opened up the opportunity for Belarus to create its own port infrastructure in Russia.
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko announced this at a meeting today, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Now, according to the formula “there would be no luck, but misfortune would help,” we have a good chance to create our own port infrastructure, which we have long dreamed of. The Russian Federation has opened doors for us at all levels. At least from the Russian President there are no obstacles, but exceptional support. We need to build the port quickly and at minimal cost,” Lukashenko said.
He believes that Belarus should start shipping potash fertilizers at Russian ports, without even waiting for the infrastructure to be created there.
“We don’t have time to wait for this or that infrastructure to be built in some port. Today we are talking primarily about the northwestern region of the Russian Federation. The President of Russia personally showed me all the ports of St. Petersburg and around it (he knows this thoroughly) and suggested: choose any direction. But I told him, we need to load today. He says: any point and start loading. Therefore, I often say figuratively, while we are building, we will be loading bags. Naturally, you can’t load 12 million tons or more in bags, but nevertheless, this means that today we must literally load our goods on every free square meter of Russian ports. The Belarusian Potash Company and other shippers have already begun to do this, but we need to speed up,” Lukashenko said.
He instructed the Belarusian government to calculate the options and decide which direction is most profitable in terms of logistics.
According to Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko, nine ports that open to different seas are ready to ship Belarusian goods. This is in particular Astrakhan, Vladivostok, Novorossiysk. The main thing, according to the prime minister, is to achieve diversification.
“That is, do not put everything into one point, as we did with the Baltic ports. Anomalous processes are taking place in world politics. It is very difficult to foresee anything. It is no longer black swans that fly out, but black whales that emerge. Therefore, diversifying supplies as much as possible is now the main task. And minimize costs, since there is now a significant shift in the structure of cargo, both Russian and Belarusian,” Golovchenko said.
According to him, special tariffs apply to Belarusian shippers in Russian ports, which are beneficial to both parties.
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