According to official data of the Belarusian National Statistics Committee in 2014, after the introduction of Russian food ban on the supply of food and agricultural products from the EU, Norway, USA, Canada and Australia in August last year, trade structure in the country changed significantly. The official data of the Belarusian customs statistics indirectly confirm that Belarus became a transit channel for import of banned products to Russia after the introduction of Russian food ban.
Belarus increased the imports of items that are in the Russian list of banned products from the countries that came under the Russian sanctions. And at the same time the export of the these types of products from Belarus to Russia increased.
While the overall Belarusian exports to Russia decreased by 8.9% in 2014 down to $ 15.3 billion, the volume of export of food and agricultural raw materials from Belarus to Russia increased significantly. The main growth was for banned goods: the import to Russia of vegetables increased by 87.2% up to $ 262.5 million, the import of fruits by 64% up to $ 171 million, the import of fish and seafood – by 44.1% up to $ 138, 2 million.