Minsk will lose 112 million euros of expected revenue per year due to the termination of purchases of Belarusian furniture by the European Union. This is reported by the Belarusian Investigative Center with reference to Earthsight.
In recent months, Germany and Poland have been the main points of import of Belarusian furniture, then – Lithuania and Romania. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the European Union has imported Belarusian furniture worth about 250 million euros.
Earlier, human rights activists, members of the European Parliament and former political prisoners of Belarus called on the Forest Stewardship Council to investigate how furniture produced in correctional colonies in Belarus received permission from this council. Investigators found eight such colonies. They sold furniture and other products produced by prisoners, including those convicted of political crimes. The website of the state enterprise “No. 5 ” (correctional colony in Ivatsevichy) still indicates that they supply furniture to EU countries.