Lukashenko revealed details of new project with Russia: railway line from Belarus to St. Petersburg.

On October 3rd, the President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, convened a meeting on the exports of Belarusian goods. At the beginning of the session, the Head of State clearly outlined the topics for discussion.

Aleksandr Lukashenko underlined, “The topic of our conversation today in a broad sense is the sale of Belarus-made goods on the domestic and foreign markets, problems (if there’re any), and payments to the budget. In a narrow sense, we’ll look at this using the example of, firstly, sales of potash fertilisers (as well as related issues: logistics, ports, which we have discussed more than once), and secondly, petroleum products. The same thing – logistics, deliveries, payments.”

As far as the issues of the potash industry are concerned, the President underlined that the current meeting is a control one. It continues a conversation that took place a little over two months ago. Then, the Head of State recalled that the issues of creating our own port facilities for transshipment of our cargo, primarily potash fertilisers, and plans for their export by the end of the year were discussed. Moreover, the necessary decisions were made and appropriate instructions were given.

Aleksandr Lukashenko noted, “Despite any external challenges, we work in international markets. We’re working quite confidently, as Belaruskali’s Director General Ivan Golovaty reported to me last week. But, of course, we can’t relax. There are too many obstacles and barriers that we have to overcome. Our bottleneck, especially when working through ports, and in general, is the railway. We left the Baltic ports and are working in the St. Petersburg area. We look at the more northern ports of Murmansk, and these are millions and millions of tonnes of cargo that we must supply.”

According to the President, we also work in the south of Russia through their ports, “No one hampers us at the ports. But I underline once again: the bottleneck is railway supplies, especially in the direction of St. Petersburg.”

Aleksandr Lukashenko recalled that he recently discussed this issue with Vladimir Putin, “I asked Deputy PM Sivak and the Prime Minister to prepare some kind of presentation materials on all the bottlenecks of the railway in the direction of St. Petersburg for my meeting with the Russian President, which will take place in the near future. I think it’s possible to expand there, laying 170 or more kilometres of the second branch. Or we can return to what was in the Soviet period: to restore rail passing sidings. By restoring them, we will significantly increase the supply of our products in the coming years.”

Aleksandr Lukashenko said that Vladimir Putin supported this idea and proposed to discuss in detail the issues of railway supplies during the meeting.