Finnish diary industry to suffer from Russian food embargo

HELSINKI, Aug 9 (Xinhua) : Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said yesterday that Finland is among the countries hardest hit by Russian food embargo, among the most affected sectors is the diary industry.
In response to tightened European Union (EU) sanctions imposed against Russia last week over the Ukraine crisis, Russia decided earlier this week to ban agricultural imports from countries that have sanctioned Russia.
The list of embargo includes vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy products and many other agricultural and food products.
According to the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce, Russia is one of the important trade partners of Finland with more than 5.4 billion euros (about 7.2 billion US dollars) of exports from Finland to Russia last year, of which 7.5 per cent was food and drink. Heikki Juutinen, director of the Finnish Federation of Food and Drink Industries, said that the restrictions would bring a huge challenge to the Finnish Food industry, as about 25 per cent of Finnish food exports go to Russia.
He said that the Finnish dairy sector would be hardest hit by the Russian food embargo, as two-thirds of the food exports to Russia are dairy products, such as butter, cheese and yogurt.