Abstract
Transition has increased Russia’s openness and trade, but Russia is still a medium-sized trader and not a giant in the field. However, Russia is a very large commodity exporter. Russia’s foreign trade grew exponentially from 1991 to 2012, and then slowed down. Fuel exports with rising commodity prices were a strong driver and led to fluctuations over time. During the first stage of transition, Russia turned to Western Europe, and later China entered the field, both at the expense of trade with the former Soviet Union (FSU). Russia has benefited from China’s growth and could likely benefit from further trade integration with Western Europe as well as China.
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Notes
- 1.
The figure is for trade in goods (export plus imports), based on data from the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan; see https://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/database/SESS.html#USSR-S1.
- 2.
COMECON was formed in 1949 as a response to the Marshall plan and the emerging Western European Integration. COMECON included the USSR, six European countries that are now part of the European Union (Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania), and four other countries (Albania, Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam).
- 3.
- 4.
WTO included not only GATT but also General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and common institutional arrangements (on dispute settlement and notification requirements, among others).
- 5.
The figure shows the ‘MFN’, i.e., Most Favoured Nation, tariffs that apply to countries without any trade preferences. A technical issue is how to include so-called specific tariffs, i.e., tariffs of the form ‘x roubles per kilogram’ and the like; see Tarr (2007) for a discussion. In Fig. 12.4, we have used the ‘UNCTAD method’ available in the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) software.
- 6.
Other sources are the bi-annual reports on Russia by the US Trade Representative (the latest is USTR 2021) and the WTO trade monitoring reports on the G20 (see www.wto.org). Furthermore, the European Commission (2020) presents a comprehensive analysis of potentially trade-distorting practices in Russia.
- 7.
- 8.
See https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/services-trade/documents/oecd-stri-country-note-rus.pdf. These STRI country notes are renewed every year and we refer to the version of January 2021.
- 9.
For a detailed overview, see WTO (2018).
- 10.
According to Tarr (2016), the countries lose from this but could potentially gain from migration and the reduction of non-tariff barriers in the EAEU.
- 11.
Russia revoked the FTA with Ukraine from 1 January 2016.
- 12.
For extensive documentation of US trade policies under President Trump, see www.piie.com.
- 13.
- 14.
In spite of this, Russia has—at the time of writing—not yet joined the initiative to create a parallel dispute settlement body while the United States is still blocking the appointment of new judges in the WTO system. This Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement was set up in 2020, and by early 2022, the EU and 24 other WTO members including China were members. But not yet Russia.
- 15.
The countries that complained were Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Chinese Taipei, and Turkey. Some complained about steel only, others for steel and aluminium. See www.wto.org for information.
- 16.
See also European Commission (2020, Chapter 6) for information on import substitution policies.
- 17.
See European Commission press release 1.1.2022: EU Taxonomy: Commission begins expert consultations on Complementary Delegated Act covering certain nuclear and gas activities. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_2.
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Melchior, A. (2023). Russia in World Trade. In: Dabrowski, M. (eds) The Contemporary Russian Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17382-0_12
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