OREANDA-NEWS. On October 24, 2014, "House of Moscow" business and cultural center played host to the Russia-Belarus conference "Public and municipal procurement, prospects for cooperation" organized by Moscow Government and the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Belarus.

The main goal of the even that gathered some of the leading public procurement experts was to familiarize the Belarusian economic agents with the peculiarities of participation in public procurements in the Customs Union and Single Economic Space member states as well as laws governing public procurement in Belarus and Russia and principles of operation of electronic trading platforms of both countries.

During the conference, Oleg Yakubovich, Senior Vice Chairman of BUCE Board, delivered a report titled "Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange as an integral part of the public procurement system in the Republic of Belarus: exchange trade and electronic auctions". The report contained information about BUCE's activity related to organizing and holding two public procurement procedures - exchange trade and electronic auctions. Oleg Yakubovich also spoke about the goals, objectives and key advantages of BUCE's electronic trading platform emphasizing BUCE's commitment to making the public procurement procedure as transparent as possible and ensuring comfortable conditions for participants of electronic auctions both - from Belarus and abroad. Particular attention was paid to the ability of Belarusian suppliers to use electronic digital signatures issued by BUCE Certifying Authority for participation in public procurements in the Single Economic Space.

OJSC Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange is one of Belarus' two electronic trading platform operators authorized to hold electronic auctions for public procurement. An electronic trading platform created specifically for this purpose has been operating since March 1, 2011.

As of yet, the electronic platform has 11.5 thousand registered users, including 275 foreign companies from 29 countries worldwide. During January-September, 2014 they secured nearly 300 million USD worth of contracts, which is 48% more than last year. A total of 40 million USD were saved as a result of price reduction during auctions.