Orientation to the East
Industrial cooperation, stock exchange trading, standardization: how Belarusian-Chinese partnership is developing in these areas
All-weather, trust-based and strategic — in precisely that spirit the interaction between Belarus and China keeps developing today. Despite the geographical distance, the parties dynamically cooperate on a wide range of issues. All this became possible thanks to the strong friendship between the leaders of the two countries, Alexander Lukashenko and Xi Jinping. Active political dialogue contributes to the growth of mutual trade. And now China is Belarus’ second largest trading partner. Over ten years, we have tripled our trade turnover figures and doubled our exports of goods to this country. In January — November 2025 alone, trade in goods between Belarus and China amounted to $8.94 billion. And this is 118 percent compared to the same level in 2024. Read about the growth points of Belarusian-Chinese relations in our material.
IT WAS SAID
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko:
“The decision to build strategic relations with China at the highest level cannot be revised. On the contrary, we will invest resources, time, and attention into strengthening our cooperation. There are all reserves for this. China is here to stay. We will always cooperate with China as long as our country exists as a sovereign and independent state. And I am sure that we will always be independent and sovereign.”
During a meeting on the development of partnership with China, January 27, 2026.
Bet on cooperation
Experts state that the intensification of economic and technological cooperation between Belarus and China, which occupies leading positions in the world in a number of areas of significant interest to us, will contribute to the solution of priority tasks of socio-economic development in the five-year plan that has begun recently. These are, of course, mechanical engineering, electronics and biotechnology. Cooperation and partnership in these areas will allow us to be in the global technological trend and in the future to reach a new level of creating our own high-tech products.
“In its turn, China is a huge consumer market with a population of 1.409 billion people, and we should intensify the supply of food, industrial products, raw timber and everything that our country produces and that Chinese consumers urgently need,” highlights Alieh Dziachenka, Deputy Chairman of the Standing Commission on International Affairs of the House of Representatives. “The potential for mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation with the Celestial Empire is extremely huge, facilitated by a favorable political climate.”
Belarus and China are step by step creating institutional conditions for deepening and expanding industrial cooperation. Thus, in March 2023, a comprehensive strategy for joint industrial development was signed, which identified priority areas of interaction. In November of the same year, a detailed plan was signed, which included about 30 projects involving Chinese competencies and technologies for their development and implementation.
And in 2025, the first meeting of the commission on industrial cooperation of the Belarusian-Chinese intergovernmental cooperation committee was held. This is a new institutional mechanism of interaction, which is designed to bring the industrial partnership of the two countries to a qualitatively new level, coordinating large-scale projects and eliminating barriers to their implementation.
By the way, in Belarus and China the years of 2026–2027 have been declared the Years of Industrial Cooperation. The corresponding joint statement was signed in Beijing by the ministers of industry of Belarus and China at the end of 2025, giving a symbolic start to events and projects. Minister of Industry of Belarus Andrei Kuzniatsow is confident that 2026–2027 will be breakthrough years for further strengthening of industrial cooperation in all areas,
“For Belarusian industrial enterprises, the years of cooperation in 2026–2027 will significantly increase the level of partnership with Chinese manufacturers. The emphasis will be placed not only on attracting Chinese equipment, but also on the full development of technologies and competencies. This will make it possible to move to deep industrial integration, in which the modernization of domestic enterprises will proceed in parallel with the creation of new joint ventures.”
Lot for trade turnover
Last year, more than a thousand new foreign companies became participants in exchange trading at the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange. In total, 1086 foreign companies from 34 countries were accredited to participate in bidding at BUCE in 2025. The top five in numbers of new participants included companies from China. Manufacturers from the Celestial Empire regularly used the exchange platform to supply a wide range of industrial and consumer goods to Belarus. BUCE is confident that this year the volume of transactions in this segment of the exchange market will grow.
“In 2025, Chinese companies significantly increased sales of industrial and consumer goods at exchange trading — from 930 thousand dollars in 2024 to more than 12 million dollars in 2025,” said Aliaxej Dykusha, head of the BUCE representative office in Shanghai. “At the same time, not only spare parts and components were sold through the exchange, but also industrial tools, special machinery, technological equipment, and vehicles. As a result, the share of transactions with goods of this category in the total volume of exchange imports from China amounted to 67 percent. Of these, 24 percent in value terms were import-substituting products. All this indicates an increased interest of Chinese suppliers in the Belarusian market and the exchange distribution channel. I believe that this opens up additional opportunities for increasing mutual trade turnover and strengthening trade and economic relations between our countries.”
By the way, in 2025, 100 residents of the PRC were accredited to participate in exchange trading in various groups of primary and non-primary goods at BUCE. Currently, the total number of Chinese users of the Belarusian platform is about 350 companies, three of which have the status of stock brokers.
With a quality mark
Today, the regulatory legal framework for bilateral cooperation between Belarus and China in the field of technical regulation includes 13 documents, including the Cooperation Agreement on the reproduction and dissemination of standards, the Cooperation Agreement and Memorandum in the fields of standardization, metrology, conformity assessment and accreditation, as well as other agreements, including the ones at the level of national institutes in the field of standardization and metrology. Over the past two years, bilateral cooperation in these areas of activity has intensified significantly.
“The existing strategy of China in the field of quality is fully in line with the approaches of Belarus in matters of developing the quality of domestic products,” noted Gosstandart. “In 2026, work on improving the regulatory framework in the field of technical regulation, promoting the further development of trade and economic cooperation, will continue both at the bilateral level and within the framework of the Joint Action Plan of national standardization institutions of the SCO member countries. In particular, it provides for a meeting of the heads of standardization institution, the creation of a working group on cooperation in the field of standardization and quality infrastructure in general, as well as thematic expert groups in key areas of cooperation, including metrology, accreditation, conformity assessment, the work of which will make the development and application of standards even more effective and popular.”
WORD TO THE EXPERT
BISR analyst Anastasija Savinykh:
“It is fundamentally important that Beijing is gradually moving away from a universal approach to partners, relying on pragmatic, economically justified and institutionalized models of cooperation. This creates both opportunities and challenges for Belarus. On the one hand, stable political relations with China and a high level of trust remain our advantage, allowing us to transfer political capital into specific export contracts, investment projects and production chains. On the other hand, competition for China’s attention requires the formation of a more complex and in-depth agenda, focused on the joint development of high technologies, industrial cooperation, localization of production, development of logistics and digital trade, as well as the transition from tied loans to direct investments.
This is precisely what the Head of State focused on, emphasizing the need for more active and meaningful participation of Belarus in the Belt and Road Initiative projects, primarily in the investment dimension. We are talking about a transition from a presence in a multilateral format to the formation of a clearly structured bilateral cooperation model built on the basis of this initiative. In other words, the extensive framework of the Belt and Road Initiative must be filled with applied content: industry road maps, intercountry investment agreements and projects focused on a specific economic result.
For Chinese state-owned corporations and financial institutions, the presence of politically approved and institutionalized bilateral mechanisms greatly simplifies investment decisions. In this context, Belarus’ task is not just to participate in China’s global initiatives, but to proactively turn them into an instrument for promoting national interests, consolidating cooperation with China in specific sectors through projects and long-term investment ties.”