Millions To Offshores: Belarus Trading With Gibraltar And The Marshall Islands

The total turnover of such trade was more than $130 million.

Have you ever heard of the Marshall Islands? It's a tiny state in the Pacific Ocean with a population of about 55 thousand people (less than Slutsk) and a GDP of a ridiculous $220 million. In 2020 Belarus purchased $25 million worth of "services" from this state. What kind of services? The documents do not contain an exact answer, Euroradio reports.

In fact, the Marshall Islands is a popular offshore. A territory within which companies doing business outside it enjoy registration privileges and tax exemptions.

Would you like any services?

The official statistics divide foreign trade into two categories: goods and services. Trade in services is a very broad sphere: from buying intellectual property rights to financial and legal services. And there is such an article as "other business services": in 2020, the volume of foreign trade in it was $1.7 billion.

To be sure, you won't find the "withdrawal of funds" article in the official documents. It can be disguised as any transaction involving the purchase and sale of a "service." And trading with distant exotic countries, whose entire economies are maintained only through their offshore activities, arouses the greatest suspicion.

$130 million a year

Journalists have made a list of countries that are recognized worldwide as offshores, and calculated how successfully Belarus traded with them in 2020. The total turnover was more than $130 million!

The annual turnover with some territories - for example, with Anguilla (a dwarf state in the Caribbean) - is modest: 11.5 thousand dollars. Although in 2014 it was 40 times more.

Several offshore partners of Belarus got on the map

Still, there are those with whom the market has a turnover of millions. In 2020, Belarus traded with the Bahamas for $2.2 million. Almost all of it is import - that is, someone in Belarus buys some services there, for which he transfers money there. In 2019, our country's turnover with the Bahamas was over $9 million.

Last year, Belarus bought $6 million worth of services in Barbados, which is also famous for being an offshore. The British Virgin Islands, another popular offshore territory, are eight hundred kilometers from Barbados. For example, the company-owner of a large Belarusian exporter of solvents is registered there. Belarus has "traded services" with the British Virgin Islands for $31.5 million over the year. Most of it was import.

Geography for the curious

One can learn geography through the list of offshore foreign economic partners of Belarus. Students do not learn at school about Guernsey, an island in the English Channel. However, our country trades with it for nearly $8 million a year.

Or, for example, Gibraltar. De jure, it is an overseas territory of Great Britain, which is also famous as one of the offshore centers. Belarus has traded with Gibraltar for $10 million over a year.

Curaçao is not just a liquor, but also a separate country, albeit formally a part of the Netherlands. It is located, as is often the case with offshores, on a picturesque island in the Caribbean Sea. In 2020, Belarus traded services with Curaçao for $15 million. It's mostly Belarusian exports - that is, we sold them some services and received money. Or did we bring it back?

Africa also has offshore countries. For example, Belarus bought $11.7 million worth of services from Liberia, one of the poorest countries in the world. The main "service" of this country in the international market is selling the so-called "flag of convenience" - the right for foreign ships to fly the Liberian flag and thus receive reduced rates of port fees in most countries of the world.

More than $1 million is Belarus' turnover with such states as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Belize.

And it goes on

At the beginning of 2021, the active trade with some "interesting" countries actively continues. In January-February alone, according to official statistics, we purchased more than $5 million worth of services from the Marshall Islands. Judge for yourself what kind of services this is, considering that the banking sector produces half of the country's GDP.