OREANDA-NEWS. On 10 June 2009 was announced, that companies accountable to the Belarusian Agriculture Ministry reported a 2% decrease in exports in January-April 2009, Tamara Usacheva with the Agriculture Ministry told reporters.

She said the ministry planned to catch up with last year’s level in January-June.

Usacheva said butter and powdered milk prices had fallen, and only meat prices increased a bit. It will be hard to have an increase in exports, though, because dairy products account for about 60% of all exports.

Belarus exports butter and powdered milk at prices 30% below costs, and cheese at 20% below production cost.

In January-March, exports of farm produce fell 3.1% on the year to U.S. USD 351.7 million.