Trade in Belarusian goods is common in Lithuania: politics has not been affected

However, there are not many Belarusian products in Lithuania. For example, cosmetics can be found in an unusual retail chain, sold mainly online, in small shops, and in markets.

Retail chains: few Belarusian products

Vaida Budrienė, Iki’s communications director, informed BNS that the retail chain has not entered into direct contracts for the supply of Belarusian products, but receives some from the wholesalers.

Norfa spokesman Darius Ryliškis told BNS that Belarusian products, like Russian ones, are on the net, but very few are sweets, beer, vodka and bitters: “We have been trading for a long time.”

He also assured that so far there is no knowledge that the Belarusians will cut off the supply.

D. Ryliškis could not say whether the landing history in Minsk affected purchases of Belarusian products.

“It just came to our attention then. It’s not the goods that cause the trade fluctuations right away,” he explained.

According to Ernesta Dapkienė, Director of Maxima’s Image and Communication Department, sales of Belarusian products this year decreased by 21% compared to last year, and the change was due to lower sales of alcohol.

We sell products from all Lithuanian neighbors on the network, but the range of Belarusian products is the smallest: salt, canned fish and other products, soft drinks, strong alcohol and industrial products.

“We have marketed these products from Belarus for a long time,” said E. Dapkienė.

A large part of Belarusian products are bought from intermediaries, but Maxima buys alcoholic beverages directly.

The cosmetics trade remains stable so far

According to Eglė Aleknaitė, director of Belita Kosmetika, a company that sells Belarusian cosmetics, the company still does not feel any political influence in the trade, its purchases have remained similar to the previous ones. However, according to her, the company orders fewer products from Belarus.

“Currently, the events in Belarus did not have a noticeable difference in sales,” says E. Aleknaitė.

“In a physical store, customers sometimes discuss events and state a fact, but they do not link the consumption and purchase of products directly to the events,” he said.

According to her, sometimes customers fear that their favorite Belarusian products will disappear, at that time “what percentage” of them say that they will no longer buy Belarusian cosmetics so as not to support the Lukashenko regime.

“Very rarely, but it happens when people say they don’t want to support, they don’t want to buy,” said E. Aleknaitė, director of Belita Kosmetika.

He did not hide that there are fears about the future of the business: if the ban on importing Belarusian cosmetics into Lithuania, the company would face bankruptcy.

Arūnas Varneckis, owner of another Belarusian cosmetics company, Spekuliacija, which supplies Lithuania to Belarus, also claimed that BNS had not yet noticed any change in trade, but said that in 2014, Russian products were abandoned due to events in Ukraine.

“It just came to our attention then. Apparently, people are against the regime, not against the common people who produce that product,” said A. Varneckis.

He acknowledged that the company’s operations would not be disrupted if the supply of Belarusian cosmetics was disrupted, which would suffer if transit through Belarus were disrupted.

“We are transporting more from Ukraine. There are already problems: trucks wait on the walls for two or three days when they enter. If you close the borders completely, it will affect logistics, it will become more expensive, because everything will have to be transported through from Poland. (…) Our goods are relatively cheap, it is not worth flying, because they would become more expensive and uncompetitive, “said the head of Speculacijos.

Mantas Zakarka, director of the Lithuanian Alcoholic Beverages and Producers Association, says that little Belarusian alcohol enters Lithuania.

“Most of our members do not have any production from Belarus, and those that do account for up to a percentage of total imports. These are unit products,” reported M. Zakarka.

According to Saulius Galadauskas, president of the Lithuanian Brewers Guild, no brewer belonging to the guild transports Belarusian beer to Lithuania.