“The export data indicates that the most affected country will likely be Lithuania, where food exports to Russia amount to 2.7 percent of GDP. The vegetables/fruits export sector appears particularly vulnerable as three quarters of these exports are shipped to Russia,” the EBRD said in a press release.
“The overall GDP effect appears to be less potent in other sanctioned economies where shares of food export to Russia are less than half a percentage point of GDP,” it said.
However, with re-exports making up a large share of exports to Russia, the hardest hit sector in Lithuania will be transport, not agriculture, according to the press release.
“Even in Lithuania, food exports to Russia are a mere 53 percent of the country’s total imports of the same foodstuffs from the EU. Some analysts claim that food exports from Lithuania to Russia may consist of a substantial share of re-exports (up to 80 percent) from other Western economies, although a large portion of these imports may still come from other affected CSEE countries, including Latvia and Estonia,” the EBRD said.
“To the extent re-exports rather than domestic production will suffer, the effect on Lithuanian GDP will be less than 2.7 percent, with agricultural sector less affected, but firms servicing exports to Russia, e.g. transport sector firms, more affected,” it added
Russia imposed a ban on food and agricultural product imports from the EU in early August.
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