Belarusian enterprises have taken advantage of the window of opportunity that opened on the market, Economy Minister Aleksandr Chervyakov told journalists, BelTA has learned.

“Enterprises took advantage of the window of opportunity that opened on the market. Firstly, we made up for almost 80% of estimated losses that we incurred because of being denied access to the markets of unfriendly countries. Therefore, I would outline the key steps we are going to take to ramp up output and restore the economy. The first one is the transition to the so-called eastern vector,” Aleksandr Chervyakov said.

According to him, Belarusian products are doing quite well on the Asian market. “I would like to cite a few figures to illustrate my point. In January alone, we almost doubled exports to Asian countries. In other words, we have begun to implement a strategy of shifting eastwards, to the Asian vector,” the minister emphasized. “Secondly, China, of course, is a very important market for us, and we will try to increase our presence there. And the main task for our enterprises today is to take up vacant niches that emerged after the withdrawal of foreign companies, especially from the Russian market,” the minister said.

“And it is important to keep in mind that import substitution remains a key goal and we are going to extraordinary lengths to achieve it. Therefore, we have a separate strategy for each market,” added Aleksandr Chervyakov.