Polish customs seized more than 250 m3 of birch plywood worth over 1 million zloty. Birch plywood shipped by the company from Tunisia was found at the Baltic Hub container terminal in Gdansk.
“During the inspection, law enforcement officers found that the collective packaging of the goods has Cyrillic inscriptions indicating the model and type of plywood produced in Russian factories.… Due to suspected violations of sanctions imposed by the European Union on products imported from the Russian Federation and Belarus, the goods were detained,” the Polish Finance Ministry said in a statement.
The Polish authorities are strictly fighting against violations of sanctions. In August 2024, the Polish Interior Ministry added the Kazakh company Vostochny Plywood Mill to the sanctions list. The company was included in the Polish sanctions list because of possible ties with Russia.
“In 2019-2021, there were no cases of birch plywood being imported from Kazakhstan to Poland. Imports to Poland began in 2022, after the imposition of sanctions against Russia. The volume of imports in 2023 and 2024 increased by more than nine times compared to 2022 and amounted to more than 112 thousand tons. In May 2024, the European Commission imposed an anti–dumping duty on imports of birch plywood of Russian origin supplied from Turkey or Kazakhstan,” the Polish Interior Ministry said at the time.
The Ministry also clarified that, according to the EU, plywood from Turkey and Kazakhstan had the same physical and chemical characteristics, which indicated the Russian origin of the raw materials.
