Rusland vil importere 40.000 tons oksekød

Uruguay exportó 19.538 toneladas a Rusia por US$ 54,4 millones, bastante por debajo de las 49.631 toneladas que ingresaron a China por US$ 149 millones.

When assessing impact of sanctions on Russia, how can we say what is the part played by sanctions, what has been the impact of oil price drop, and what the role of slowdown in Europe as a vital trade partner to Russia?

That’s one excellent question and as I presented the question of sanctions-package impact on member states, I repeatedly underlined it was actually impossible to precisely pinpoint the part of the sanctions.

One is certain: the sanctions have substantially speeded up the negative processes in Russian economy. There’s actually three aspects to this. The first being: even before the economic sanctions were imposed, there were clear signs of Russian economic growth stalling and nearing zero. Largely, that’s because Russia has basically neglected structural reforms; they have not advanced with modernisation of the economy; the various trade barriers have not been removed; and the entire structure of the economy is not corresponding to what this century would require.

On the back side of this comes the serious drop of oil prices. While in July Brent crude cost $114 a barrel, by today (Friday – edit) it has dropped to $82–83. No doubt, this has a huge impact on Russia.

Between these two aspects come the sanctions which have served as a catalyst of said processes.

Of all sanctions, the most effective have been those imposed on financial sector, serving to bring the rouble down to record lows. Capital flight has exceeded all earlier forecasts – by the end of the year, it is predicted at $120bn and it seems to be very clearly headed towards that.

Capital fleeing the country has pushed the interest rates up sharply, affecting economic activity. It is especially hard for small and medium business. There are now almost no foreign investments into Russia, any more.

Talking about the energy sector, restrictions have already been effective for the very reason of all Arctic partnership projects being linked to European and US oil majors. Exxon Mobil, for instance, has frozen nine of the ten projects launched before the sanctions with Rosneft.