SPIMEX to launch sales of exchange-trade forest products for export in 2025
MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) - The St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX) will launch sales of exchange-traded forest products for export in 2025, SPIMEX managing director Alexei Ryzhikov said in an interview with Interfax.
He said SPIMEX has already begun the first experiments with exchange exports of forest products.
"We're already working in this direction with EAEU countries. Specifically, 120 cubic meters of engineered wood was shipped to Kazakhstan in 2023 in four exchange transactions. In 2024, there were already 94 transactions with trading participants who were buyers from Kazakhstan; sales totalled 3,500 cubic meters. Furthermore, Kazakh buyers themselves came forward with the initiative of exchange purchases on SPIMEX. They acquire the good from our subordinate institutions and work out the logistics change. In other words, they ship it out themselves," Ryzhikov said.
It is Kazakh activity that pushed SPIMEX toward the idea of launching a fully exchange-traded export product using the OTP RZD system, which is now being fine-tuned on the oil product market. The export destinations for forest products are Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.
"Thanks to the use of the OTP RZD, a set of instruments will be offered to foreign buyers that we believe will help overcome their ambivalence toward buying Russian forest products on the exchange," Rizhikov said.
First of all, SPIMEX will guarantee product quality. Secondly, the exchange is responsible for delivery times and the safety of the goods. Thirdly, there will be a substantial bonus thanks to infrastructure, as the foreign buyer will be able to track their product through the OTP RZD, including the location and time of its movement and arrival at the point of destination. And, importantly, exchange clearing eliminates the problem of getting paid for sellers, Ryzhikov said.
"As a result, there will be new instruments on SPIMEX that make it possible to ship forest products for export. Thus the exchange will prepare everything necessary for launching a foreign economic contract. The last infrastructure preparations are now being concluded. From the start of 2025 the exchange intends to work as hard as possible on promoting export sales in the Forestry section," Ryzhikov said.
He said SPIMEX did lengthy preparations for the launch of the forex products export project.
"Agreements were signed with several major foreign forestry and coal associations - we are also concurrently working out shipping exchange-traded coal for export through the OTP RZD. We gathered delegations of interested foreign representatives and brought them to Russia, showed them production facilities, acquainted them with selling companies accredited on the exchange. The OTP RZD will become the main plus for everyone - this we also explain in detail," Ryzhikov said.
Exports of round timber from Russia have been banned since 2022.
