Anti-Russia Sanctions to Cost Japan up to $10Bln - Trade Representative

Japanese business could lose up to 10 billion dollars because of the anti-Russia sanctions, Russia’s trade representative in Japan Sergey Egorov said Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Western countries, including Japan, imposed sanctions targeting Russia's banking, energy and defense sectors after Crimea's reunification with Russia last March and the beginning of Ukraine's internal conflict the following month.

"Thus, we can state with confidence a figure of several billion dollars, up to 10 billion dollars, perhaps, on the medium-term outlook. This is very substantial damage," Egorov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Egorov added that in 2014, a significant reduction in Russian imports from Japan affected two product groups — cars and industrial machinery. The decline, according to the official, was due to the depreciation of the Russian national currency and tighter Russian state restrictions on trade in high-tech products.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Finance, in 2014, Japanese exports to Russia amounted to 8.2 billion dollars compared to 11.0 billion dollars in 2013. In 2014, the volume of Russian-Japanese trade amounted to 30.4 billion dollars, which is 4.4 billion dollars less than in 2013.