German businessmen turned to Chancellor Angela Merkel with a request to influence President of the United States Donald Trump and induce him to relax the economic policy towards Russian business. On the eve of Merkel's trip to Washington, the Russian-German Foreign Trade Chamber (VTP) conducted a survey among its members. It turned out that 79% of them insist on an open speech by Berlin against anti-Russian sanctions, and another 19% believe that the federal government should act on Washington behind the scenes, but firmly. It is clear that the Germans are not only happy about the interests of Russians. They themselves incur huge losses from the measures that the US is taking against companies and citizens of Russia. In particular, in early April 2018. Oleg Deripaska and his En + Group, GAZ Group, Basic Element and Rusal were included in the new US sanctions list; Viktor Vekselberg and the Renova Group; the head of "Gazprom" Alexey Miller and other well-known businessmen. As a result, forced suspension of contracts execution, termination of contracts with them. In addition, the market was a nervous situation:.
world business involuntarily thinks whether the new wave of sanctions will not bring more and more names of representatives of Russian companies. Thus, German business fully feels the direct impact of anti-Russian measures by the United States.
"Short-term losses already in the current financial year are estimated by the survey participants in hundreds of millions of euros, and can reach up to 377 million euros," says the report of the Chamber. - Medium-term losses will be, according to conservative estimates, no less than 0.82 billion euros.
In the worst case scenario, the losses of the companies surveyed may amount to almost one and a half billion euros, "warns the VTP. German business "risks becoming a hostage to a third party," commented on the situation with the impact of anti-Russian US sanctions on companies from Germany, Chairman of the Russian-German ITP Matthias Shepp. However, despite the threat of colossal losses, German business in Russia does not plan to leave the Russian market: 70% of respondents will leave the volume of investments at the same level, and only 10% think about reducing.