Isolation? China Begins Direct Sales Of Fruit & Vegetables To Russia

 

Despite the ongoing mainstream media meme that Russia is becoming 'isolated' from the rest of the world thanks to Western sanctions, it appears they have found a few new 'old' friends to become un-isolated with. On the heels of Russia's food-import-ban sanctions last week, Russian and Chinese officials have announced an agreement that China will start selling fruit and vegetables directly to Russiavia a special logistics center in Russia's far east. Notably, this week saw Russia's GDP beat consensus expectations, Ruble rally, and stocks jump as German confidence plunged - can you say blowback?

As RT reports,

China will start selling fruit and vegetables directly to Russia, and Baorong company plans to set up a special logistics center in Dongning on the border with Russia’s Far East to do it.

The 70,000 square meter wholesale market and 30,000 square meter warehouse, fitted out with refrigerators and other equipment, will be in a special cross-border customs zone,ITAR-TASS cites the head of the Association of Applied Economy of the Heilongjiang Province Zhang Chunjiao.

“Direct export of fruit and vegetables to Russia will be organized from it," she said.

It will cost $9.7 million to construct. Customs clearance times will be reduced, and there will be no need to double-check the cargo because of video surveillance in the warehouse.

A Chinese company Dili, also intends to create a similar cross-border trade zone by the end of 2014, Zhang Chunjiao added.

The announcement comes after Russia introduced a 1-year ban on imports of some agricultural products from the EU, US, Australia, Canada, Australia and Norway last week. If it lasts, it could cost European Union members $16 billion, Vygaudas Usackas, the EU ambassador to Russia, estimated.

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We assume payment for these imports will be in Rubles or Renminbi... not US Dollars.

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As we noted last week, there is good reason why Europe is being battered by these new sanctions; but who is hit hardest?

EU member states have already complained their economies would be hit hard, with Germany and Poland losing the most trade with Russia, and the Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – seeing their shares of GDP falling even sharper.

For the US the effect will be very limited, as agricultural exports to Russia are about one tenth of one percent of total US gross domestic product of about $144 billion, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

US food exports to Russia in 2013 amounted to less than 1 percent of the country’s total agricultural exports, the US Department of Agriculture said to RIA Novosti. Conversely, Russian exports to the US and European markets are 13 percent of its GDP. In 2013, the US exported $1.3 billion of food goods to Russia, about a quarter of which were poultry products.

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Furthermore, perhaps in the interests of not embarassing itself, the EU is not asking China to refrain from supportinG Russia:

The European Union has no plans to ask a number of states, in particular China, to refrain from replacing banned European food products in the Russian market, a source close to EU leadership told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

“There are no concrete plans,” the official said, answering a question on whether the EU will ask China and some other countries not to replace banned agricultural and food products from Europe with their own goods in the Russian market.

Media reports earlier suggested that the European Union planned to convince Brazil, Chile and other Latin American states not to export their food products to Russia. It was said that EU expects these countries not to take advantage of the embargo on European products.

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So it seems, US sanctions sparked European blowback... how long before Washington finds itself alone again.

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More un-isolation?

  • *PUTIN SAYS EGYPT READY TO BOOST FURTHER FOOD EXPORTS TO RUSSIA
  • *EGYPT STUDIES FREE TRADE ZONE W/ RUSSIA-LED CUSTOMS UNION:PUTIN
  • *RUSSIA SEEKS TO DOUBLE EGYPTIAN FOOD IMPORTS, FEDOROV SAYS
  • *RUSSIA'S FEDOROV SAYS EGYPT SUPPLIED $460M IN FOOD IN 1H

source

 

Well, they were going to get them from somewhere! Stupid to think that they were just going to "do without".

 

In a world where everybody is trying to make a living, thinking that someone that produces food and can not sell it on towns market will not sell it to someone else is a lack of brain. Coming from countries that are losing economic power and are trying to substitute that with military power is even more stupid : people, accept it, China is going to be the biggest economical power on Earth already this year. Small war games are not going to prevent them : they are just going to make alliances that are going to make the decline of the economic power faster. Times when spending money on arms were smart are long gone

 

is this it

World War3 starts over some fruit and veg

 

We live in a very sad world.

 
WR1:
is this it World War3 starts over some fruit and veg

Just a quick thought :

Take US and Russia. And since by now it is obvious that the "sanction guns" from both sides are adjusted to undershoot, who the actual target is? And wasn't it like that from day one?

 
techmac:
Just a quick thought : Take US and Russia. And since by now it is obvious that the "sanction guns" from both sides are adjusted to undershoot, who the actual target is? And wasn't it like that from day one?

Come to think it seems possible

 

That was "served" about midnight GMT

I would not rush to believe it before serious confirmation

 

Did Ukraine Attack Its Own Tanks? White House "Can't Confirm Russian Convoy Was Destr

While today's trading session was marked by news which at first blush correlated with what may be the 2014 equivalent of the Archduke Ferdinand shooting, in retrospect the newsflow made painfully little sense. Let's recap:

  1. Yesterday afternoon, two UK reporters working for the Guardianand Telegraph, supposedly located by the border in east Ukraine, reported that they were "eyewitnesses" as a convoy of military trucks crossedthe Russian border into the breakaway Donetsk republic, aka Ukraine. While there have been photos of the military trucks that have accompanied the Russian humantiarian convoy on Russian territory, there has so far been no proof, aside from said eyewitness reports, confirming Russian military vehicles entered or were in Ukraine.
  2. This morning Ukraine military’s spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, shocked the world when newswires reported that Ukraine forces had attacked an armed convoy from Russia, and "destroyed" a part of it. This was subsequently reiterated by the president of Ukraine himself who saidthat "the given information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of that machines had been eliminated by the Ukrainian artillery at night", and by the secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said that the alliance had detected an “incursion” of vehicles from Russia last night, adding that “what we have seen last night is the continuation of what we have seen for some time." Alas, as in the case above, just more verbal reports, with zero actual evidence.
  3. Shortly thereafter, Russia responded when the Russian defense ministry said that there was no Russian military column that crossed into Eastern Ukraine, and that the above reports are based on "some fantasies."

This is where the breakdown of logic occurs, because for Russia to make such a formal statement it clearly implies that Russia believesthere is no evidence of destruction of a Russian convoy in Ukraine territory, something which obviously would exist if indeed as Ukraine's president had claimed, the "majority of the machines had been eliminated."

If true, it also implies that either Ukraine had fabricated the entire story, and certainly the part about the destruction of the convoy and by extension that Russians had ever entered into East Ukraine. Furthermore, that would also suggest that the reports of the British reporters were also a fabrication.

Unless, of course, there isevidence, in which case the credibility of the both the Guardian and Telegraph reporters can be preserved, Ukraine can not be accused of fabricating a story to suit what some may say its own warmongering ambitions, and the onus is on Russia to explain why it lied about there being no invasion.

More to the point, the onus is on Ukraine to present some evidence, in fact any evidence, of a destroyed Russian military convoy instead of merely building upon a story conceived by the two UK media outlets, because if Ukraine indeed has no evidence, then its story falls apart and what's worse, the credibility and reputation of its government, of NATO and certainly of the UK press would be in tatters.

So what other possibility is there? Well, one that is all too unpalatable for Ukraine, namely that in its excitement to blow something up, it may have well destroyed some of its own military vehicles. A possible lead to such a turn of events comes from this Interfaxreport citing the leadership of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic.

The leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic has dismissed the Ukrainian government's statement on destroying a convoy of what appeared to be Russian armored vehicles in eastern Ukraine.

"We haven't received any armored vehicles from Russia. No Russian units, including Russian armored vehicles, have crossed the border. Hence, no Russian armored vehicles could have been destroyed," DPR First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin told Interfax on Friday evening.

Purgin claimed that, on the contrary, the militias destroyed about 100 Ukrainian armored vehicles.

"A lot of Ukrainian armored vehicles were destroyed today, 7 at one place, 12 at another. And the same all over the DPR territory. A total of about 100 of them," Purgin said.

The implication is clear: while 100 or so Ukraine armored vehicles may or may not have been destroyed, one wonders if indeed the Ukraine army was responsible in "aiding" the separatists with what would appear to be a friendly-fire incident?

But perhaps the most damning evidence comes from none other than the White House itself, which according to CNN just admitted that while it accuses Moscow of "incursions" it can't confirm the convoy was destroyed by Kiev.

Perhaps for the simplest reason that there is no evidence to help with the confirmation process?

Which is rather unpleasant, because as explained above, without confirmation of a destroyed convoy, the whole story falls apart as merely yet another unprecedented warmongering fabrication, one involving not only the Kiev regime, but NATO and the UK press as well!

What is worse, is that if indeed the specter arises that Ukraine is lying about an event that nearly gave the market a heart attack on the belief that a new international war involving Russia may be about to break out, was Ukraine also lying about flight MH-17. And else may the Kiev regime been lying about?

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