А. Lukashenko: Over the years of independence, the forest area has increased by almost 1 million hectares

19 января 2021
The position of forestry in the country's economy was not shaken by the pandemic and other challenges of the past year. The results of the industry were discussed today at the Palace of Independence. The President recalled the high status of the forest state - Belarus is among the ten  most forested states in Europe. During the years of independence, these positions have only strengthened. The main thing is not to lose leadership. Forestry can be more productive. Alexander Lukashenko instructed the government to more actively replace  the imported energy resources with local fuels. 

President: The forestry industry works stably, despite the complexities of the epidemiological situation

Now hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of low-quality timber is being converted into real money. 6 new pellet plants, which were put into operation last year, are working for this task. But there is no reason to ignore the domestic market, where local fuel will also be used. 

A. Lukashenko: We can reduce the consumption of natural gas, for which we pay big money

Alexander Lukashenko, President of the Republic of Belarus: "We need to cover our needs ourselves in order to replace natural gas for heating. Why are we burning an imported resource? Therefore, I absolutely support your proposal that for the future we need to determine how much firewood, pellets and chips  we  need for the internal needs. We must heat houses, villages, agro-towns, cities with firewood. We have enough of this renewable resource. We can reduce the consumption of natural gas, for which we pay a lot of money."

Vitaly Drozhzha, Minister of Forestry of Belarus: "The President set the task to continue work on involving all available wood resources in the turnover, creating production facilities for the production of fuel pellets. We will calculate the feasibility of switching from gas to wood chips, pellets, briquettes and so on, and the appropriate decisions will be made."