Baltic nations set to lose €690m in 2015 due to Russian crisis

Russia's ongoing economic crisis due to the Western sanctions and lower oil prices is expected to hurt its neighbouring Baltic nations significantly.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the euro area's newest members, are expected to lose €690m (£509m, $783m) collectively in 2015 due to lower exports to Russia, Bloomberg said, citing a report by Denmark's Danske Bank.

Due to Russia's recession and the weak rouble, the value of goods and services exported to Russia by these three countries will shrink by between 18% and 25%. Russia accounts for 21% of Lithuania's exports, 12% of Latvia's and 9.8% of Estonia's, according to official data.

Russia, one of the largest oil producing nations, has been hit by the fall in oil prices, declining by about 50% since June 2014. In addition, the country faces Western sanctions in connection with the political row over Ukraine.

The recent slump in oil prices is expected to result in yearly revenue cuts of $180bn, a senior official at the Russian finance ministry said earlier. He added the only way Russia has to balance its accounts could be by cutting its imports.

The Baltic economies have cut their 2015 growth forecasts by between 1.3 and 1.7 percentage points compared to 2014, according to Bloomberg. Since the Russia-Ukraine crisis in early 2014, the economies lost about $1.58bn in potential economic expansion.

Nevertheless, the Baltic states have some of the lowest debt burdens in the euro area and are expected to grow faster than most of their colleagues in the single-currency region in 2015.

The higher growth rate is due to increased spending by consumers in the Baltics, according to Danske Bank.