Japan has banned the export of steel and aluminum products to Russia. How will the new sanctions affect cooperation between the two countries? – Russian newspaper

“Due to the current situation around Ukraine, Japan will take measures to ban exports to Russia in order to contribute to international efforts to achieve peace,” the ministry said in a statement.Thus, the list of goods prohibited for import into Russia will include non-motorized aircraft and their components, gliders, parachutes, braking systems for aircraft, aviation ground training equipment, components for unmanned aerial vehicles pilot and the drones themselves.In addition, the ban will apply to the supply of rolled products of iron and non-alloy, stainless or other alloy steels. The list includes instruments for measuring pressure, flow, level and other parameters of liquids or gases, hydrometers and barometers, as well as instruments for physical, chemical and meteorological analysis.Trade with Russia in calendar year 2022 rose 6.2% to 2.56 trillion yen (about $19.96 billion), despite sanctions. Growth was boosted by rising energy prices. Vladislav Antonov, financial analyst at BitRiver, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta about it.”Japan supported sanctions against Russia, as Western countries accused it of sponsoring a special operation in Ukraine. Apparently there was strong pressure for a new sanctions package to be introduced,” Antonov said.
According to him, after the new sanctions, it is not clear how relations with the Japanese will develop in the Sakhalin-2 energy project. Meanwhile, Russia is closely monitoring the actions of its neighbor, which is on the list of hostile countries. For example, earlier our country suspended the 1998 fishing agreement. Japanese fishermen immediately encountered difficulties in extracting valuable species of fish and seafood, he added.”There are about 800 goods and technologies on Japan’s banned list whose export to Russia is prohibited. Russia cannot be surprised by new sanctions,” Antonov said.According to Alexander Daniltsev, director of the Trade Policy Institute at the National Research University’s Graduate School of Economics, to some extent the replacement of supplies from Japan seems realistic.The announced new set of sanctions measures affects the supply of ferrous and aluminum metals and products from Japan to Russia, as well as a number of certain types of high-tech products. He noted that Russia does not play a significant role as a Japanese market for these categories of metals (for ferrous metals in recent years the share was less than 0.1%, for ferrous metal products – 1.6 %, aluminum – 0.25%) . In turn, Japan’s share in the supply of ferrous metals to the Russian Federation in recent years has been about 0.35%, 2.55% for ferrous metal products and 0.5% for aluminium, explained the expert.“In none of these major categories of metal products, Japan was among the top ten suppliers to the Russian Federation. neutral,” Daniltsev explained.Previously, Japan allocated 12.8 billion yen (about $91 million) in non-repayable development assistance (ODA) to a number of countries that did not support a UN resolution condemning the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.