In just one month, 350 million less. Italian exports to Russia halved in March, providing a first direct indication of the immediate economic repercussions of the invasion of Ukraine. Istat data on extra-EU exports reveal a still favorable picture elsewhere, with double-digit growth almost everywhere, bringing the total values to rise by a robust 22%. Choral growth that leaves Moscow aside, where instead the values drop by 51%. Not so much due to direct trade sanctions, which at that time affected only a limited part of our production, but above all due to the immediate constraints placed on the payment system and on access to the Swift platform of Russian banks. Uncertainties and real blocks that have halved the transactions, with the result of cutting down to 364 million the 716 million exported from Italy to Russia in March last year.
In the absence of the sectoral data, which will be disclosed later, the “suspects” among the sectors are the heaviest in absolute terms against Moscow, therefore plant and machinery, textile-clothing and footwear.
The opposite result, on the other hand, on the side of imports, where energy prices make the values collected by Moscow fly. In just one month, thanks to gas and oil, Russian sales to Italy rose by 153%, more than doubled to over three billion euros, from 1.2 billion in March 2021.
As a result of this gap, the limited trade deficit at the time (just under 500 million euros) turns into a chasm of 2.7 billion for Italy, which rises to 6.2 billion in the first quarter.
Energy thus brings the entire non-EU trade balance into the red: from a robust surplus of almost five billion in March 2021, it now drops to -515 million. And April, looking at the prices, can’t have gotten much better.