Plans are in place to start selling Belarusian sawn wood to Egypt via the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE), BUCE Press Secretary Roman Yaniv told BelTA. 

BUCE's representatives met with top managers of the company Sama Al-Jazeera for Import and Export. The parties agreed to launch export of Belarusian sawn wood to Egypt via the commodity exchange. “This will enable Egyptian companies to purchase products of the woodworking industry in unlimited quantities and without intermediaries. For their part, Belarusian exporters will be able to gain a foothold in the promising Egyptian market that annually consumes about five million cubic meters of sawn wood,” Roman Yaniv said. 

“At present, almost all sawn wood export to Egypt involves intermediaries, due to which prices are sometimes inflated. As a large supplier of sawn wood, we would like to work with Belarusian woodworking companies directly, taking advantage of the commodity exchange. This is the best option for us, because we get access to hundreds of woodworking enterprises that are ready to supply goods to us on reasonable terms,” Mahmoud Kandil, the company's director general, said. 

In turn, BUCE Chairman of the Board Aleksandr Osmolovsky pointed out that it is important to intensify cooperation in exchange trade with Egyptian business and proposed Sama Al-Jazeera for Import and Export to consider becoming a BUCE broker. “This will make you a representative of BUCE not only in Egypt but also in the entire African continent. We do not have accredited brokers in that region yet, and this niche is unoccupied. You do not need to limit yourselves only to sawn wood. You can work with any goods that interest you. For our part, we are ready to help you find reliable business partners and provide up-to-date information about the Belarusian commodity exchange market,” Aleksandr Osmolovsky stressed. 

The Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange was set up in 2004. It conducted its first auctions in June 2005. BUCE is one of the largest commodity exchanges in Eastern Europe. Its main function is to assist Belarusian enterprises with exporting products and foreign companies with entering the Belarusian market. BUCE sells a wide range of metal, forestry, and agricultural products, industrial and consumer goods.