MILAN, November 27. /TASS/. The mutual sanctions between Russia and the European Union this year will cost Italy around €20-22 billion, which is higher than official estimates, an Italian investor said on Thursday.

“We speak of around €20-22 billion in net loss this year,” Vincenzo Trani, the chairman of board of directors of the Italian holding General Invest, said Thursday.

Speaking ahead of the fourth Russian-Italian economic forum, Trani said sanctions will never do anything good, adding that the country’s agriculture sector suffers the most from the crisis.

“The damage for Italy is much more than the one announced by the ministers. In real economic life, a great number of companies have been affected, and they face serious problems,” he said.

Some Italian companies have filed lawsuits to contest the decision of the country’s government to support sanctions against Russia, Trani said. The outcome will be announced later on Thursday at the forum, he said.

Earlier on Thursday, a study unveiled by the Bocconi University, one of Europe's top 10 business schools, suggested that Italy’s economy could lose around €3.7 billion ($4.6 billion) in 2014-2015 due to the EU sanctions against Russia.

The United States and the European Union have imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow since March over its stance on the conflict in Ukraine. By early September, some 420 Russian individuals and 143 companies have been put on the sanctions lists of the EU, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland and Norway.

Retaliating for Western penalties, Moscow introduced a one-year ban on imports of selected foods from sanctioning countries. The ban, announced at the start of August, bars imports of meat, fish, dairy, fruit and vegetables from the United States, the 28-nation European Union, Canada, Australia and Norway.