Business news

Inflation in Belarus at 0.9% in March 2020
Prices for foods rose by 0.3% from February 2020 and 2.1% over December 2019...

Permits for production of 503m face masks issued in Belarus
The current national stockpile includes 2.5 million face masks, 176,000 respirators, 110,000 items of protective wear, 19 million pairs of gloves and 44,000 pairs of protective glasses...

Plans to subsidize conversion of Belarusian households to electric heating, cooking
The Belarusian energy minister is convinced that the implementation of the presidential decree will allow increasing electricity consumption in the country. It will also improve living standards for citizens, primarily those, who live in the countryside where centralized gas supply and heating are not available...

Belarus prime minister calls for serious dedollarization of EAEU economy
"It is particularly necessary to do that with regard to fuel and energy resources, raw materials"...

Belarus expects oil deliveries from Azerbaijan, Norway in April
Negotiations are underway to sign contracts on oil deliveries from Russia for April...

Belarusian private sector to help work out proposals to bolster economy in pandemic conditions
The Economy Ministry is monitoring the situation from three angles: the point of view of the private sector, the point of view of the regions, and the point of view of industry-specific ministries...

Some 10m homemade face masks sold in Belarus
At present the light industry makes over 500,000 masks and protective dressings per day and is intent on increasing the number to over 1 million...

Belarusian distilleries to make 23t of antiseptics per day
"Four distilleries have already been licensed [to make antiseptics]. The recipes have been approved"...

Belarus wants Russian Gazprom to reduce natural gas price in 2020
As a way to revise the price Belarus suggested buying certain amounts of natural gas via commodity exchanges at competitive prices...

Belarus looking forward to receive about 700,000 respirators within week
The minister said that the stocks of respirators for healthcare workers in Belarus exceed 170,000 items. Around 5,000-6,000 are used per day...

Belarus prepares proposals to support tourism amid COVID-19 pandemic
"The Sport and Tourism Ministry together with the National Union of Tourism Industry and the National Union of Tourist Organizations has set up a task force to work out a set of measures to support the tourism industry"...

MTZ exports to Africa up 70% in Q1 2020
According to the company, in Q1 2020 the export volume remained at the level of the same period in 2019...

Belarus to ramp up production of masks to 1m items this week
"This applies not only to gauze sanitary masks but also nonwoven masks - the classic disposables to which we are accustomed"...

BelGee car export to Russia up 2.5 times in Q1
According to BelGee, it manufactured 5,059 cars in Q1 2020, up 1.6 times year-on-year...

Belarus’ second university nanosatellite ready for launch
"The Belarusian State University (BSU) launched its small satellite BSU Sat-1 two years ago. Another satellite is ready for launch. Its development involves various space technologies"...

Belarus’ agricultural export up by 9.7% in January-February
"Revenue increased by $81.5 million over the same period a year prior"...

Belarus, China sign memorandum of strategic cooperation in agriculture
The memorandum of intent deals with the export of Belarus-made agricultural products (including poultry meat, flax and dairy products) and foodstuffs, as well as high-quality raw materials for Chinese traditional medicine...

Production of coronavirus test kits launched in Vitebsk
"Our test kit detects the virus in 45 minutes. The amplification itself lasts for 1.5 hours, but it is possible to carry out 96 tests simultaneously"...

Another 130-tonne haul truck from Belarusian BelAZ starts working in Ukraine
The new haul truck will be used to carry rock along the serpentine road of the oldest mine of Central GOK...

Another tanker to deliver 85,000t of oil from Azerbaijan for Belarus soon
Tankers will keep bringing oil for Belarus via the southern direction and the northern one...