Us And European Sanctions On Russia Will Affect South Africa'S Trade With Russia And Ukraine

The White House spokesman said that since April 17th, Russia has not fulfilled any promise of the Geneva agreement and further escalated the crisis. The United States and the European Union announced the escalation of sanctions against Russia. The deterioration of the political crisis in Ukraine has led to the worry of South Africa's trading partners, South Africa. South Africa imports about half of its total imports from Ukraine and Russia, while South Africa exports fur, fruit, ham and wine to Russia.

　　 South Africa Media "bdlive" recently reported that the intensification of the crisis between Ukraine and Russia increased the intensity of sanctions against Russia in the US and Europe. This will affect trade between South Africa and Russia and Ukraine.

Although the trade volume between Ukraine and Russian speaking South Africa is in South Africa Trade The proportion of the total is not very large, but if the situation in Russia and Ukraine is further deteriorating, it is bound to affect South Africa's importation of some important commodities from these two countries.

Last year, South Africa imported 46.3% of the total imports from Russia and Ukraine. If the situation worsened in Ukraine and the sanctions escalated, South Africa had to find other cheap wheat suppliers.

Rising food prices pose a major threat to consumer inflation in South Africa. Last month, rising grain prices were an important driving force for the rise in the consumer price index, with an annual inflation rate of 6%. The annual growth rate of grain prices rose to 7.2% (3.2% in December last year). If the South African currency Rand continues to depreciate, grain prices will rise.

The trade commodities of South Africa and Ukraine and Russia include fertilizer, fruit, ham, manganese ore and animals. Leatherwear And so on. Data show that 28.4% of South Africa's tanning or nitrate and artificial leather were exported to Russia in 2013, and South African ham, fruit jelly and manganese ore were also exported to these two countries.

Last year, Russia and Ukraine imported manganese ore from South Africa accounted for 4.3% of total exports, and citrus accounted for 11.4% of total exports. In addition, Russia is also an important wine market. South Africa exports 6.5% of its total exports to Russia.

Fortunately, South Africa will not rely on Russia for oil imports. Although Russia exports a lot of mineral fuels and distilled products to South Africa, its crude oil supplied to South Africa accounts for only 0.7% of South Africa's crude oil imports.

But South Africa imports 11% of its total chemical fertilizer from Russia. In addition, 10% of the total imports from South Africa came from Russia.

The Ukraine crisis has also affected the confidence of global investors. Many investors began to choose to avoid stock investment, while choosing safer investment projects, such as buying gold, the price of gold has soared to 1300 dollars per ounce.

Ukraine is known as "European granary" and exports grain to Europe every year. Besides, it also exports large quantities of wheat to countries such as South Africa. The intensification of the situation in the Ukraine authorities will inevitably affect its supply of food to the EU, South Africa and other regions and countries.