Minsk extends sanctions. Ukraine is losing the Belarusian market
Belarus has extended sanctions against Ukraine by introducing licensing for the import of certain types of goods from Ukraine, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Licensing included analogues of goods produced by the enterprises of the Belarusian concerns Bellesbumprom and Belgospishcheprom - chipboard and fibreboard, wallpaper, toilet paper, furniture, some types of cardboard and paper packaging, confectionery, chocolate, cookies, beer.
Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus announced the possibility of introducing a ban on the import of products produced in a number of states that support illegal sanctions against the republic.
Thus, Minsk extended the sanctions that were introduced for six months in response to Ukraine’s blocking of air traffic with Belarus after the May scandal with the landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk and the detention of the White Maidan extremist Protasevich. Then the list of licensed goods also included “confectionery”, beer, wallpaper, toilet paper, etc.
This step will not affect trade between the two countries, since it has already been curtailed, but will record the loss of the Belarusian market for Ukraine. Economist Alexander Okhrimenko stated this in a comment to a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Trade between Ukraine and Belarus began to collapse after the Maidan, although they didn’t really talk about it. But if you look at the volumes, it began to decline after 2014. Once upon a time, in very good times, Ukraine supplied quite a lot to Belarus. Our confectionery, household appliances, toilet paper, and so on went there. There was a period when we supplied a large amount of finished products to Belarus. And after the Maidan, mutual trade began to curtail,” the expert noted.
“This led to the fact that volumes decreased noticeably, and now Ukraine has actually lost the Belarusian market in terms of sales of finished products. The introduction of licensing for a number of Ukrainian goods six months ago recorded this loss, and the current extension of this licensing suggests that the Belarusian market is lost, at least for a very long time. Belarus seems to have drawn the line: that’s it, the market is lost,” the expert said.
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