The volume of trade between Ukraine and Russia has dropped by nearly 84% over the past six years, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a joint press conference with European Commission Vice-President for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight Maros Sefcovic in Kyiv.
“In fact, the volume of annual trade from Russia has dropped over the past six years by nearly 84%, from $37 billion to $7 billion. Trade turnover between Russia and Ukraine is gradually declining. At the same time, the volume of trade [between Ukraine and] Europe has grown to over 40%, which means it has grown by more than fivefold. The replacement of markets is underway, and Ukraine is learning to manufacture goods of higher quality, in line with European standards, which meets the course of our development,” Shmyhal said, when asked by Interfax-Ukraine what share of Ukrainian exports has been affected by Russia’s recently-introduced ban on imports of certain products from Ukraine and how the Ukrainian government would respond to it.
Shmyhal insisted that he was talking not about “trade wars” but about the Ukrainian market’s natural reorientation toward the European and other markets.
As was reported earlier, the Russian government extended a list of products that cannot be imported from Ukraine on June 28, 2021.
