April 18, Pozirk. Andrej Kartun, the first deputy minister of economy, has named Egypt, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and South Africa as “anchor points” in Africa.
He noted that “African counterparties often say that they cannot pay us because of rigid currency laws but can exchange the oranges we need for our tractors. There are already successful cases of such exchanges.”
“Literally over the past short period of time, more than 20 embassies have been opened in nontraditional markets. And this continues to happen in Africa because of its huge potential,” Kartun said in an interview broadcast by Belarus 1 yesterday.
The interview came one week after Alaksandar Łukašenka complained about a sharp decline in exports to Asian and African countries. He said sales in those markets accounted for only 20 percent of the 2021 presanction level.
The Belarusian leader mentioned agreements to supply more than 3,000 tractors, 80 combine harvesters and 30 dump trucks to Zimbabwe and more than 150 tractors to Togo.
“Our strategic goal is to organize joint assembly of Belarusian equipment in the anchor countries. The key task today is to diversify exports,” Łukašenka said.
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