Losses of Belarus from the ban on the transit of potash fertilizers through Lithuania

Sergey Kondratiev, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of the Institute for Energy and Finance Foundation, in an interview with the Eurasia.Expert Internet portal, commented on the consequences of the agreement termination between Belaruskali and Lithuanian Railways for Belarus and Lithuania.

- Direct losses will not be very large and will amount to tens of millions of euros. Both Lithuanian and Belarusian economies, in principle, can survive these losses, but if we are talking about indirect losses, they will be more significant. For Belarus, this means changing transit routes and reorienting towards Russian ports.

- When Belarus had a choice between the Baltic ports and transshipment in the north-west ports of Russia, it could demand more attractive conditions from Moscow, and now Belarus is losing this opportunity. Indirect losses per year can reach €80-100 million due to the fact, that the situation will worsen both financially and in terms of the availability of transshipment capacities.