At the beginning of September, the Belarusian news outlet Nasha Niva revealed that due to Western sanctions on Belarusbank, China had not paid another tranche of credit ($103 million) for the construction of the $2 billion Slavkaliy potash mining and processing plant in Lyuban, Belarus. The project has been stalled since June and subsequently, subcontractors have begun to leave the construction site (Nasha Niva, September 1). The investment is being carried out with China’s active financial support. In 2015, during Xi Jinping’s visit to Belarus, the Chinese Development Bank agreed to provide $1.4 billion credit, guaranteed by the Belarusian government (Mofcom.gov.cn, May 12, 2015). Importantly, the Slavkaliy project is owned by the Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriyev, who was also sanctioned due to his close business and political ties with Belarus’s President Alyaksandr Lukashenka; Gutseriyev provided $600 million for the project (Official Journal of the European Union, June 21).
Western Sanctions on Belarus’s Potash Industry Test Beijing-Minsk Partnership – Jamestown
