Foreign economic activity

Vitebsk Oblast is well-positioned for developing foreign economic activity.

Vitebsk Oblast has a favorable geographical location, which provides opportunities for sustainable trade and economic cooperation with, first of all, Russia and the Baltic countries.

Vitebsk Oblast is attractive to investors thanks to the well-developed gas and oil pipeline infrastructure, Europe’s biggest transport corridors, passenger and cargo transportation flows (air, rail and road).

Coupled with the rich nature and resource potential, these factors create good opportunities for the development of new export-oriented and import-substituting manufactures and export promotion.

Vitebsk Oblast attaches priority attention to the companies operating in the food industry, agricultural and flax processing that work with local suppliers of raw materials.

Local logging, woodworking and peat mining companies and also the producers of building materials have shown a strong export performance as well.

The commodity structure of Vitebsk Oblast exports is dominated by petroleum products, tow, acrylic fibers, polyethylene.

The food sector has been rapidly stepping up exports. The biggest export items are meat and dairy products (84% of the total exports of municipal companies). These include milk powder, butter, cheese, cottage cheese, canned meat and milk.

Major commercial enterprises mainly export apparel, footwear, linen fabrics, cable products, building materials, timber, machine tools.

Many regional companies operate their own distribution network entities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Smolensk, Pskov, a number of towns in Moscow Oblast, and in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Aliansplast, Production Association Energocomplekt, Soyuz-Cable, Kochanovo Pipe Plant Beltrubplast, Linpac Packaging East are part of the largest European holding companies to supply packaging materials, cable products, polyethylene pipes.

Accounting for over 68% of the total trade, Russia is the main trading partner of Vitebsk Oblast.

Transportation services annually account for about half of total exports of services provided by Vitebsk Oblast companies.

Vitebsk Oblast has been working to increase the export of education, culture, recreation, sport, rental and maintenance, tourism, engineering, construction and telecommunication services.