OREANDA-NEWS. August 21, 2013. The Chamber of Trade and Industry (CCI) and the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE) signed a cooperation agreement in Chisinau. The accord is aimed at facilitating the initiation of business partnerships between entrepreneurs from the two states, and helping development of the Moldovan-Belarusian economic and trade relations.

CCI head Gheorghe Cucu highlighted the Moldovan business people’s interest in Belarus. “The commodity exchanges represent an efficient mechanism, largely used in the international practice. The Belarusian market is very important for Moldova, as it has a great potential. Traditionally, we export agro-industrial goods to Belarus, which are pretty well known and demanded there, and import machines, equipments. We should extend and turn to account these opportunities, and namely for this reason we signed the cooperation agreement,” Gheorghe Cucu stressed.

For his part, the chairman of the board of the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange, Arkadiy Salikov, said that the BUCE had been set up in 2005, and has good cooperation relations with the CCI from Belarus and similar institutions from other states. “By consolidating the efforts, we will inform economic agents from our countries about the advantages and possibilities of tapping the Belarusian market, and respectively, the Moldovan one. Also, we will help them find trustworthy partners for the development of the commercial cooperation. We want our relations be mutually advantageous and long lasting,” Salikov added.

Data by the National Statistics Bureau shows that Moldova’s foreign trade with Belarus (without taking into account the work of the economic agents from the eastern districts) stood at 109.5 million dollars in the first five months of 2013, down by 0.81 per cent against the same period last year.

On the concerned period, the export of goods amounted to 34.2 million dollars, increasing by 11.03 per cent against the first five months of 2012. At the same time, the import from Belarus was estimated at 75.3 million dollars, dropping by 5.4 per cent against January-May 2012.