Italian goods will become available to businesses for rubles

Russian companies will be able to buy goods from Italy for rubles.
The payment system program has already been launched, the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce confirmed to Kommersant FM. The search for participants for pilot transactions on both sides is currently underway. A third country is being involved as a paying agent; an agreement has been reached with the Central Bank of Armenia, the head of the chamber, Ferdinando Pelazzo, previously reported. The choice of the republic is due, in particular, to the fact that the costs of sending products through the Caucasian country and through Europe are approximately the same, the Chamber of Commerce noted.

However, the list of goods that can be purchased in Italy is limited. These are only those items that are not included in the EU sanctions list, says Artem Genkin, general director of the Consulting and Analytical Union: “There are product groups on which restrictions will not be imposed under any circumstances. This may apply to food, children’s and educational products. And, most likely, we are talking about their import into the territory of the countries of the Customs Union.

If a product, the import of which has not been prohibited by the countries of the Customs Union due to its belonging to one of these product groups, enters the territory of the Customs Union, it can be freely imported from one country to another subject to appropriate documentation.

The calculation scheme will include a double conversion, first from rubles into the currency of a friendly country, and from this currency into euros. That is, there will be additional costs for additional conversion and, apparently, commissions from banking institutions providing this service, but in general, with some increase in prices, the commodity payment scheme will be quite viable.”

The Italians said that during the preparation of the project they encountered many technical difficulties. For example, it turned out that Armenia is not a member of the Hague Apostille Convention, but has joined the Minsk Convention. Because of this, I had to look for translators accredited at the Armenian embassy to complete the documents. A lot of time was spent on obtaining approval from the Central Bank of Italy, said Ferdinando Pelazzo.

All these efforts indicate that Europeans are interested in returning to the Russian market. It is possible that other countries will gradually begin to use this workaround, says Andrey Timchuk, partner, co-head of sanctions practice at Delcredere Bar Association: “Today no one is publicly announcing that we are going to use a paying agent.

It is even more unusual to hear this from the European side, because the Russian banking and financial sector is targeted from the point of view of Western sanctions. This applies to both American and European sanctions. Although this is not a circumvention of sanctions, such steps make them somewhat meaningless. And they offer such an organization scheme from the same country that imposes these sanctions.

Therefore, two scenarios are possible. In the first, this will begin a certain process when companies from the country imposing sanctions will use these schemes more openly, and perhaps they will be punished less for them. In the second Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce they will give instructions from above that this should not be done. And, probably, this option is more likely.”

As of September 2023, Italian exports to Russia fell by about 20% and amounted to €3.2 billion. But in some categories, according to estimates by the Chamber of Commerce, growth was recorded. For example, in the fashion segment it is clothes and shoes.

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Svetlana Belova