About 1,600 German companies are still operating in Russia, Die Zeit reports.
According to the publication, their combined turnover last year was about €20 billion. Some of these companies are again represented at the economic forum in St. Petersburg for the first time in many years.
“Not least for the moment after a ceasefire, we, like other major Western countries, want to preserve an economic bridge to Russia and protect more than €100 billion in German assets in Russia,” said Matthias Schepp, chairman of the board of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce.
According to Die Zeit, representatives of the United States and France have been taking part in the business dialogue since last year.
Schepp believes the West should not “cede Russia’s large market and Asia’s raw-material resources for the long term.” According to him, Chinese entrepreneurs alone registered 1,400 new companies in Russia in the first quarter of this year.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany remained Russia’s largest European trading partner: in 2021, bilateral trade totaled €59.7 billion. Cooperation reached its highest level in 2012, when the figure stood at €80 billion.
“According to a new chamber survey of its 750 members, almost all companies plan to remain in Russia because they consider the market significant. Seventy-five percent of the 265 respondents said they were satisfied with the development of their business in Russia—despite millions in losses caused by sanctions,” Die Zeit writes.