German Economy Backbone Bending From Lost Russia Sales

[Purveyor]

By Elisabeth Behrmann, Alex Webb and Birgit Jennen Aug 11, 2014 10:10 AM ET

MWL Apparate Bau GmbH, based in the eastern German town of Grimma, has relied on strong ties with Russia to bolster business. Today, those links don’t mean much.

The maker of equipment such as pressure vessels and hot water tanks for the chemical and petrochemical industries has seen a “significant” decline in orders in the last six months due to the crisis, sales chief Reinhard Weber said. The company has annual revenue of about 20 million euros ($27 million).

“There are two contracts from Russia we didn’t get and we think that’s for political reasons,” Weber said in a telephone interview. “They’re afraid of sanctions being extended -- that they will make an order and that we won’t be able to fulfill it because of political decisions in Germany or Europe.”

Waging Financial War

MWL is one of many businesses in Germany’s Mittelstand, the thousands of small- and medium-sized companies that form the backbone of Europe’s largest economy, that are already getting pinched as Russian customers put off purchases. With the crisis now intensifying through deeper European Union and U.S. sanctions and retaliatory measures from Russia banning EU and U.S. food imports, they’re preparing for an even bigger hit.

Take Amandus Kahl GmbH. The maker of food processing and recycling machinery near Hamburg had expected to bring in about 10 million euros in revenue this year from Russia.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-10/german-economy-backbone-bending-from-lost-russia-sales.html

[seveneyes]

1. Rubber tires are the future

They go through them rather quickly in Kiev, where this shit sandwich was created.