In the Russian Primorye, the construction of the Belarusian port was postponed for financial reasons

The project of creating a Belarusian port in the Russian Primorye was postponed for financial reasons – said the head of the Primorsky Territory of Russia Oleg Kozhemyak on the basis of a meeting with Alexander Lukashenko, Belta, Belarusian State Agency reports. About it reports Belarusian Radio Liberty.

During the previous visits of the head of the Russian region to Minsk, it was reported that the intention to create a common port with the participation of Russian, Belarusian and Chinese sides was discussed in Primorye.

“We do not remove these ports anywhere. We put them off because reality is now a high banking rate (a key rate of the Central Bank of Russia is 21 percent per annum), which will certainly lie on the infrastructure and the cost of transit, ”Kozhemyak said.

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Earlier, the Belarusian authorities stated that the port in the Primorye needed Minsk as an important point on a transit path to China. At the beginning of 2024, Primorye was visited by a team of experts from Belarus who have experience in the implementation of port projects.

Following the support of the Belarusian leadership of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, Belarus lost the opportunity to supply its products to foreign markets through the seaports of Ukraine and Lithuania.

In September 2022, Belarus and Russia signed an intergovernmental agreement on transit of Belarusian cargo through the territory of the Russian Federation. The document ensures the creation of alternative ways of supplying export products both through seaports and through land transport infrastructure.

At the same time, the parties agreed to build ports for transshipment of Belarusian products.

In August 2022, Lukashenko stated that Belarus received a “good chance” to create her own port infrastructure in the Northwestern region of the Russian Federation. Later, the then Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko reported that Minsk and Moscow were “creating new transport and logistics chains”.

The construction agreement on the construction of the Belarusian port in Murmansk was signed in April 2024, and the commissioning was planned for 2028. Belarus is also looking for a site for the construction of the port in the Leningrad region of Russia. However, the parties have not yet been announced about the construction of port infrastructure for Belarus.