Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said that a foreign investor could participate in the development of the Petrikovskoye potash deposit, Interfax reported.
“If there are proposals and they are accepted, go ahead with Belaruskali and build together [with them]. We are not ruling this out,” Lukashenko said at a news conference in Minsk.
First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said at the news conference that “recently there were representatives from India, and we told them that if you offer good terms that are of interest to Belaruskali and the republic, then we can, in exceptional cases, submit the proposals to the president.”
“This is a very interesting deposit. The proposal is that 6 million tons of potash ore be mined per year, and the reserves total 2.1 billion tons,” Semashko said.
“These reserves are for 350 years, just the explored ones,” he said. “This is one of the most promising deposits.”
Lukashenko said state-owned potash producer Belaruskali had won the international tender for the development of the Petrikovskoye deposit last year.
Belarussian authorities have considered companies from China, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Canada as co-investors for the project.
Companies from Russia, India and the European Union have also expressed interest in the project, and Belarus has discussed the possibility of bringing investors from Qatar.
The Petrikovskoye potash salt deposit is in the northeastern part of the Gomel region.
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