Possibility of leveraging BUCE’s electronic platforms to buy Belarusian sawn timber directly from manufactures was one of the key topics on the agenda of the talks with a delegation of British woodworking companies that visited BUCE head office on June 19.

Attending the event were some of Belarus’ top timber exporters, exchange brokers and representatives of the Belarusian embassy in the UK.

According to BUCE Chairman Arkady Salikov, should British companies decide to purchase sawn timber through the exchange, they would not only gain access to a wide range of suppliers but also mitigate possible commercial risks.

“One of the chief functions of a commodity exchange is to accumulate supply and demand for goods and thus ensure efficient price discovery in a highly competitive environment. In Belarus, we’ve taken it a step further by offering our clients a set of tools to safeguard themselves from the risk of other party defaulting on its contractual obligations. These are escrow accounts, security deposits, transaction monitoring, just to name a few. As a result, less than 1% of the total amount of transactions requires legal action”, stressed Arkady Salikov.

Along with the particulars of participation in exchange trades, the sides also discussed quality assurance for Belarusian sawn timber, stability of supplies, and logistics.

Thus, Peter Carter, CEO of Carter Turner Ltd., believes that the quality of the Belarusian timber products largely meets the UK standards but most importantly the prices are very attractive, even with transportation costs factored in.

“What we saw at Borisov wood processing plant pretty much surpassed our expectations. I think that there will be demand for such products in the UK market. More so that the current exchange quotations for Belarusian sawn timber make it quite competitive. This said, although this whole exchange trade thing is new to us, it’s certainly worth a try”, the British businessman noted.

In addition, as part of their visit to BUCE, the British woodworkers held B2B talks with Belarusian timber exporters willing to sell their merchandise to the UK via BUCE’s electronic platform. The agreements reached during the meeting laid the groundwork for fruitful cooperation between Belarusian and UK businesses in such promising areas as timber harvesting, processing, and sales.