Kazakhstan and Belarus to agree on crude and petroleum products exports

Kazakhstan and Belarus are drafting an intergovernmental agreement on crude and petroleum products exports to Belarus, Belarus’ belta.by reports. The draft will be considered in September 2012 in the Kazakh town of Taldykorgan by the Kazakh-Belarus intergovernmental committee for trade and economic cooperation. According to Mr. Valery Brylev, Belarus Ambassador to Kazakhstan, “the document is rather complicated: it has to be approved by the Russian side as oil will be shipped across Russia”. In 2010 Kazakhstan exported to Belarus over 650 000 tons of petroleum products worth $314.5 million; the 2011 figure stood at 54 700 tons worth $34.5 million. The decrease of the figure is assigned to Kazakhstan’s efforts to focus on new types of petroleum products. Belarus has increased its exports to Kazakhstan: for the first five months of 2012 the bilateral trade figure grew by 21% as compared to the like period of 2011, making up $387 million. Belarus’ exports grew 1.4 fold in exceed of $335 million, with Kazakhstan’s exports decreasing by 30.3% to $52.4 million.