BRUSSELS, August 07. /ITAR-TASS/. Belgium might lose about half a billion euro on Russian food import ban, said major Belgian daily Le Soir.

According to the paper, total Belgian food export, primarily fruit supplies to Russia, amounted to 490 million euro last year.

Belgian agricultural producers would not be able to demand compensations from the European Commission, said Het Laatste Nieuws paper.

Harvest was record high this year, and Russian market closing would be a disaster for the entire sector, said director of the fruit industry centre in Belgium’s southern region, Wallonia.

In some sectors, Belgium can suffer even greater export losses. The country supplies fruit to the Netherlands, France and Britain. A ban on fruit import from all 28 EU countries to Russia will inevitably lead to surplus on these countries’ markets and thus reduce Belgian export to these countries as well.

On August 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin ruled to ban or limit for a year agricultural and food import from the countries that joined economic sanctions on Russia. The government should make a list of foods and take measures to restrain food price growth.

The document was being prepared, said Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s press secretary Natalya Timakova without disclosing the foods to be banned.