Up to 70,000 export jobs in the Czech Republic would be endangered if the Czech government supports economic sanctions against Russia. While 20,000 of jobs would be lost in the first stage, a second round of possanctions would impact sub-suppliers and kill another 50,000 positions. The Czech Economic Chamber warned Czech politicians to keep these figures in mind when discussing potential sanctions against Russia over its military action in Ukraine at the upcoming EU summit.
The chamber argues sanctions would hurt the Czech economy, which just started to see an number in new orders. The Czech export volume to Russia stands at CZK116bn, while Czech exports to Ukraine total CZK 35bn annually. “We have clear signals from our members from the ranks of exporters that such a situation would be a disaster for them seeing that their activities on the Russian and Ukrainian markets represent 50 percent of production,” the chamber told ČTK.
