Russia’s External Economic Relations: Post-Soviet Trends

Abstract

Retrospective analysis of Russia’s external relations makes possible to draw some conclusions and make a forecast on the geography and dynamics of these relations in the post-Soviet period. In Russian merchandise foreign trade the share of developed economies radically increased after the drastic decrease of this trade with near abroad countries in the 1990s. Despite the growth of Asian developing economies’ share, primarily China, emerging market economies would not take premier place in Russian merchandise trade in future. As to Russian foreign trade in services, developed economies prevail and will dominate in it primarily due to high level of development of service sector in these countries. In international capital movement Russia orients and would orient towards offshores and transshipment countries due to both tax evasion and insufficient property rights protection in Russia and this orientation results in Russian capital turnover between Russia and these countries. CIS countries dominate in Russian labor migration’ geography, prospect of immigration from those countries to Russia would depend on economic growth in Russia.