AFP, Berlin :
Exports to Russia and Ukraine fell sharply in the first half of the year as the standoff between Moscow and the former Soviet state drags on, a German business group said Monday.
German exports to Russia dropped 15.5 percent year-on-year in the first six months of 2014. They plunged 32 percent to Ukraine, said the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations.
The value of lost German trade with Russia came to 2.8 billion euros ($3.7 billion), and the loss of exported goods to Ukraine amounted to 880 million euros, the group said in a statement.
The committee, which cited official German trade data, also said the negative trend may accelerate due to punitive sanctions the EU and Russia have imposed against each other during the crisis.
“It can’t be ruled out that exports to Russia will have dropped 20 to 25 percent by the end of the year,” said committee chairman Eckhard Cordes. “That would threaten about 50,000 jobs in Germany.”
“Even the discussion of sanctions in the spring was poison for the flagging economies in the EU and Russia,” he added.
“Everything must now be done to ensure that sanctions don’t keep spiralling,” he added, calling for “constructive dialogue” to defuse the crisis.
Many German companies were uncertain about the detail of sanctions, including whether machine parts could be considered as banned dual-use exports because of their potential military use. This uncertainty has led Russian firms to look elsewhere for supplies, Cordes added, voicing fears that “large sections of Russia trade may move to Asia and Latin America”.
The committee had opposed sanctions against Russia but shifted its stance after the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet over eastern Ukraine in July.
