The Postavy Forestry will increase its export of birch sap by more than 3 times this year.

17 March, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. Postavy Forestry will increase its export of birch sap by more than three times this year. Oleg Gritskevich, leading engineer for secondary forest use and subsidiary agriculture of the Vitebsk State Production Forestry Association (GPLHO), informed BELTA correspondent about this.

In the spring of 2013, Postavy Forestry shipped 65 tonnes of birch sap worth over $6,000 to a Lithuanian commercial firm. The Lithuanian partners, highly appreciating the quality of the drink, decided to continue mutually beneficial cooperation and signed a new contract for the supply of 200 tonnes of sap worth $20,000 during the current harvesting season.

In total, this year the forestry enterprises of the regional association intend to procure about 1.5 thousand tonnes of spring drink. More than 300 tonnes of it are planned to be sold to the public, 200 tonnes will be exported, and the remaining volume will go to processing enterprises in the Vitebsk region and other regions of the country.

Trial tapping of trees has already begun, however, spring has not yet fully asserted itself in the northernmost region of the country and the sap flow is poor, noted Oleg Gritskevich. He added that the forestry enterprises intend to start mass harvesting of birch sap in the early third ten-day period of the month, when, according to weather forecasters, stable warm weather is expected. -0-