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Sanctions hit German exports to Russia

Xinhua, July 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Economic sanctions significantly hit German exports to Russia in the first five months of 2015 and was expected to cause further damages in the rest of the year, said a business group on Thursday.

From January to May, German exports to Russia slumped by 34 percent compared with the same period of previous year to 4.4 billion euros (about 4.84 billion U.S. dollars), said Germany's Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, attributing the fall to Western sanctions on Russia for its position on Ukraine crisis.

"Business relationships built up in decades and common perspectives break straight away, the economic sanctions are an essential factor," said the committee's chairman Eckhard Cordes.

According to him, German exports to its third largest trading partner outside the European Union was expected to decline by nearly one-third over the whole year of 2015, from nearly 30 billion euros in 2014 to 20 billion euros.

"Everything possible must be done to ensure that we come out of this impasse as quickly as possible," Cordes said.

Bilateral trade between Germany and Russia had already weakened in 2014 when the EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia after the crisis in Ukraine exacerbated. As a response, Russia also partially banned imports from several Western countries.

In 2014, German exported goods worth 29.3 billion euros to Russia, much lower than in 2012 when German exports to Russia stood at 38 billion euros. Endit