Decree signed to offer cheap timber for housing construction in Belarus

Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko signed Decree No.323 on 13 August to amend Decree No.437 on forestry management and timber sales of 23 November 2020.

The document allows legal persons, which are engaged in forestry management and report to the Belarus President Property Management Directorate, to sell commercial timber to natural persons in harvested format without involving the commodity exchange at manufacturer’s prices for the sake of construction or repairs of residential houses and household buildings. Decree No.437 allowed it only for organizations of the Forestry Ministry.

The new decree stipulates that if reserves of the oblast administrations are exhausted or lack a certain variety of round wood, then the Forestry Ministry can buy timber from all kinds of logging sites without involving the commodity exchange for the sake of making prefabricated houses (wooden structures and products that are subject to assembling) and selling them to natural persons.

In order to reduce prices for the prefabricated houses, the prices are calculated as if cheap raw materials from reserves of the oblast administrations were used.

How much commercial timber can be sold has also been adjusted by the presidential Decree. The limit now goes up to 70m3 per construction object or per restoration object (previously the limit covered all the objects combined) and up to 10m3 for routine repairs within one calendar year for a combination of all objects (previously it was 10m3 for every object – a residential house, a summer house, a garden cottage).

The decree is designed to satisfy citizens’ demand for raw timber at affordable prices, encourage natural persons to buy wooden prefabricated houses for the sake of housing construction, and to encourage rational usage of forest resources.

The document comes into force as of the official publication.