Русский
The Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russia’s Murmansk Regional Governor, Andrei Chibis, met on Monday (March 2) and discussed the construction of a Belarusian terminal at Russia’s Arctic port in Murmansk.
Chibis said that “various aspects and opportunities for using the potential of the Northern Sea Route, the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor, and the Arctic in general were discussed in detail. This provides a huge amount of scope for partnership with our Belarusian colleagues. We discussed in detail various options for developing the logistics of cargo shipments both to Belarus and from Belarus via the Murmansk port and via the Northern Sea Route (NSR).
In April 2024, the Murmansk regional government and Arctic Gate Marine Terminal LLC, founded by Belarusian investors and later renamed to PortArctic Marine Terminal, signed an agreement to build a terminal for the transshipment of cargo from Belarus. The terminal could handle up to 25-30 million tonnes each year after the full ramp-up, with cargo operations scheduled to begin in 2028.
Belarus is landlocked and has been subjected to sanctions as well as trade and financial embargos, as well as political interference from the EU countries on its western borders, while subjected to security problems along its southern border with Ukraine.
It is a member of both the Eurasian Economic Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States, which gives it preferential trade rights to the east with countries such as Kazakhstan, China, and Vietnam via trade agreements signed with the EAEU. India could be another market, as Delhi is negotiating similar trade agreements with the Eurasian bloc.
However, reaching these new export markets requires Russian assistance, with the Murmansk port the obvious choice given its location and relative accessibility via road and rail. It is planned that some of the cargo from the new terminal will be delivered via the Northern Sea Route (NSR), some via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, and from there to ports in China and other East Asian countries. Belarus’s foreign trade reached nearly US$90 billion in 2025, a new record, growing by 4.3% over the year, with exports reaching US$41.4 billion of this volume.
