LONDON, August 7 (RIA Novosti) - The world's third-largest consumer goods company Unilever told RIA Novosti Thursday it was not concerned about the effect of Russia’s foods import embargo on its revenues.
"We run our business in Russia by sourcing, manufacturing and selling locally. We don't import finished products into Russia, so we don't expect to see a significant impact on our business," a source in the company said.
The comment came in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree to place curbs on agricultural and foods exports to Russia from countries that imposed US-led economic sanctions against Russia.
The full list of banned products and counties was unveiled Thursday and took effect immediately. The one-year ban includes meat, poultry, fish, seafood, milk, dairy products, as well as fruits and vegetables. The “blacklist” does not feature infant foods and products.
Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch multinational company that produces food, beverages and other consumables. Both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, Unilever’s dual headquarters, were affected by Russia's trade restrictions.
The United States and European Union have been imposing targeted sanctions against a number of Russian officials and companies, accusing Moscow of meddling with Ukraine’s internal affairs. Last week, the EU introduced the third-stage sanctions targeting the financial, energy and defense sectors of the Russian economy. The sectorial sanctions hit five Russian banks, including the country’s biggest, Sberbank. The banks were banned from raising capital on the EU’s capital markets.
Moscow has repeatedly called the measures counterproductive and stressed that Russia was never involved in the Ukrainian conflict.
