Belarus’s peat industry sees cooperation with China as an important strategic priority and hopes to deepen those ties.

Valery Kovalev, director general of Beltopgaz, Belarus’s state production association for fuel and gasification, said on September 3 that the country’s peat industry viewed cooperation with China as an important strategic priority and looked forward to closer ties.

Speaking during a media tour marking the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Belarus’s Ministry of Energy, Kovalev said the volume of Belarusian peat product exports to China in 2025 was 13.5 times the 2024 level, and doubled year on year in the first half of 2026.

He said Belarus’s peat industry was developing a unified national brand and a range of further-processed products. Belarusian peat enterprises are also actively participating in international exhibitions and business forums in China to strengthen contacts with Chinese partners.

Kovalev said Belarus’s peat industry held Chinese equipment’s technology and quality in high regard, and hoped to strengthen cooperation with Chinese companies to jointly manufacture equipment for the peat industry.

Peat is an organic deposit formed from the incomplete decomposition of wetland plant remains in persistently waterlogged, oxygen-poor conditions. It can be used as fuel, as a growing medium in horticulture and to improve soil. Belarus has abundant peat resources.