Poland Imposes Sanctions Against Another Major Belarusian Manufacturer

Amid escalation on the border.

The higher the degree of tension on the Belarusian-Polish border, the more companies with capital from Belarus or related to it find themselves on Warsaw's ‘personal’ sanction list. According to the ‘Belarusians and Market’ portal, in late May, against the background of another escalation on the border, such a fate befell Mazyrsol.

The decision to freeze assets and exclude one of Europe's largest producers of edible salt from public procurement was taken by the head of the Ministry of Interior and Administration of Poland, Tomasz Siemoniak.

According to the statement of justification, Mazyrsol is part of the Belarusian State Concern Belhospischapram, which is an organisation subordinate to the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus. ‘Subjecting Mozyrsol OJSC to sanctions will reduce the export opportunities of the company, and thus affect the amount of funds transferred to the Belarusian budget,‘ reads the document.

At the end of 2023, the initiative to impose sanctions on Belarusian producers of table salt (except for Mazyrsol, it is produced by Belaruskali) was put forward by the industry non-profit organisation of ‘Polish Salt’ and the Polish company of Ciech. In particular, they pointed out that Poland had become a bridge to transit the Belarusian product to buyers in other countries of the region. And that companies from Belarus are a serious competitor to Polish producers. In 2021, according to the Polish edition of Puls Biznesu, the EU market received €22 million worth of table salt from Belarus. Among them, about €5 million worth of products were imported to Poland. In 2022, the volume of salt exports from Belarus to the EU fell to €10 million, but remained quite significant.

Mazyrsol became the first Belarusian company in the sanctions list for Tomasz Siemoniak, appointed minister in mid-May. He supported the proposal of local producers against the background of another round of escalation on the Belarusian-Polish border. During May, migrants were actively storming the border, injuring several Polish border guards.

Earlier, the predecessors of the new interior minister and administration approved the inclusion of 5 companies, associated with Belarus, in the national sanctions list.

Beloil Polska, a subsidiary of the Belarusian Oil Company, was the first to be added to the list, simultaneously with creating it in April 2022.

Last year, the assets of MAZ subsidiary (MAZ Auto Poland) were frozen amid the next outbursts of tension at the border. In the summer, MTZ and its European divisions - the Hungarian company Belarus Traktor KFT and Polish MTZ Belarus Traktor - fell under sanctions. This was a serious blow for Minsk Tractor Plant - the Polish market was one of the key for it.

In 2023, the companies registered in Poland, through which Belarusian potash and rolled metal products were supplied to Europe, also fell under sanctions. These are Chemagrotrade, a potash distributor linked to Russian billionaire Anatol Lomakin, a native of Belarus, and Steelsa, a supplier of Belarusian steel profiles and pipes owned by Kazakh citizen Sergei Potemkin.