Belarus, Brazil in talks on restoring potash trade - Brazilian ambassador
MINSK. Aug 11 (Interfax) - Belarus and Brazil are discussing expanding cooperation, including the possible restoration of Belarusian potash exports and imports of Brazilian Embraer passenger planes for airline Belavia, Brazil's ambassador in Minsk, Bernard Jorg Leopold de Garcia Klingl said after meeting with President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk on Thursday.
They discussed restoring the volume of Belarusian potash exports to Brazil, state news agency BelTA reported the ambassador as saying. Brazil is a very large producer of food for the world and at one time Belarus supplied up to 20% of all the potassium fertilizer that the country used, he said.
The meeting also touched on issues concerning Belarusian purchases of Embraer passenger planes for Belavia, the ambassador said.
"Important aspects of our bilateral cooperation were discussed at the meeting. Of course, we currently live in a fairly difficult time, when major sanctions are imposed. Nonetheless, much was done and said in order to overcome them and in order to deepen cooperation between our countries," the ambassador was quoted as saying.
Belarus's ambassador to Brazil, Sergei Lukashevich said in May 2022 that the country continues to export potassium fertilizer to Brazil and is helping to lower prices amid western sanctions. "Our product is shipped on the most advantageous terms: the average price of potassium fertilizer from Belarus in 2022 is 60% lower than fertilizer from Russia and Canada," the Lukashevich said in an interview with newspaper Correio Braziliense.
He said a group of major agricultural companies in Brazil could work out the possibility of direct purchases of potash in Belarus without intermediaries.
In February 2022, Lithuania halted transit of Belarusian potash through the Klaipeda port, the traditional route through which shipments were made to Brazil. Subsequently, the Belarusian authorities said they had rerouted potash shipments through Russian ports and that exports could exceed 8 million tonnes this year.