Belarusian Sea Shipping Company is planning to ship steel goods made by Belarus Steel Works (BSW) to Europe via Ukrainian and Serbian ports.

The shipping company is willing to organise “experimental shipments of metallurgical products to Europe via the ports of Odessa in Ukraine and Semderovo in Serbia with loading in Mozyr.” It was announced by Alexey Avramenko, the Belarusian Transport Ministry, after a meeting with BSW management.

The ministry said the shipments would be a promising area for the shipping company’s development and make water transport more appealing or Belarusian industry in general.

OJSC Belarusian Sea Shipping Company was established in 2009 and carries export, import and transit cargo to and from CIS and non-CIS countries using river-sea ships.

Belarus is landlocked but most of its exports are carried out by sea, via the Baltic States. The shipping company had earlier planned the building a deep-water port on the Dnieper River in the Gomel region, 5 km from the border with Ukraine, then shipping cargo by sea from Odessa. At the moment the Belarusian Shipping Company has only one vessel of the river-sea class - "Nadezhda". The company expects to upgrade three more ships in 2021.

BSW produces steel, roll, tubular goods and hardware and exports to 66 countries.