Study On Russia Goods Trade Structure

Russia, based on its comparative advantages of plenty of natural resourceendowment and its export of energy and raw materials, has made a great achievement in theengagement of the international division of labor and economic development patterns of trade.Thus it has become one of the most rapidly developed countries in economy in the21stcentury. This development pattern, though has boomed its economic development in a shorttime from the economic recession caused by the radical economic transformation, has also ledto a series of negative effects on the quality and speed of the economic development in Russia.If not remedied in time, this problem is likely to affect the performance of the economictransformation in the future, or even reverse the prosperous situation. Currently, the mostserious problems in the economic development are: the critical imbalance of industrialstructures, single-and-simple commodity structure of foreign trade import and export structure,heavy independency of raw materials in its economic development.The overall situation of foreign trade commodity structure shows goods trade developsfaster. The export structure of goods trade indicates that most of the bulk export commoditiesare energy and raw material resources, which are low-added-value and resource-intensive,whereas commodities of the hi-tech and high-added-value are very few. At present, Russia isone of the trade powers in the world, but its trade is featured in the center of export ofsource-intensive products. Its export of capital, technology, hi-tech products and innovativeeconomic products is still rather weak. This exports of energy, raw materials, especially oiland natural gas, amounts to more than half of the total commodity export in Russia, in adominant position. In contrary, the manufactured products, failing to keep pace with thedevelopment of the raw material industry, declines gradually each year. Its proportion inforeign trade declines tremendously from16%at the beginning of the economictransformation to3.8%in2010. The rapid development of raw materials in export and thesevere contractions in the manufacture industry are the two most prominent problems in theindustry structure and even in export structure over the past20years of economictransformation in Russia. This structural imbalance has become difficult to reconcile in thecurrent economic development in Russia.Looking from the perspective of country (region) economic structure, Russia’s exportpartners in foreign trade have been highly centralized in a dozen of Europe countries for long.However, its import partners are comparatively fewer, mainly from China, Germany, Ukraineand Brazil. This centralized situation of foreign trade, especially in export, has raised potentialrisk and reduced the flexibility in its export to other countries, which, consequently hasbecome critically serious in economic development in current Russia.This dissertation is composed of five major chapters apart from Introduction andConclusion.The Introduction has provided an overall introduction to this research project. It hascovered materials that provide a background to this study; stated the study’s central objectiveand expounded the rationale of this study by providing a range of justifications. This chapterends with the limitations and delimitations of this study.Chapter One is literature review. It firstly defines some concepts related to foreign tradestructure and reviews the related studies in this field both at home and abroad. This isfollowed by a discussion of the general changes in the foreign trade structures, the key effectinfluencers in foreign trade structures and its effects on the economic development.Chapter Two builds the theoretical foundation of foreign trade structures in this dissertation. First of all it elaborates the related theory of trade structure with a highlight onthe classical international trade theory, Neo-international trade theory and trade protectionismtheory. Then it analyzes the characteristics of trade structures, and the interrelations amongthe structures and the factors affecting the optimization and update of foreign trade structures.This chapter ends with the discussion of the choice orientation of updating foreign tradestructure.Chapter Three studies the composition of goods trade in Russia. Firstly it gives a generalanalysis of the Russian export and import structures of goods trade which covers thediscussion of the import and export of commodities, the evolution and effects of tradedependency, the promotion of the export and import structure of goods trade to Russianeconomic development. Secondly, this chapter analyzes profoundly Russian import andexport structure and its changes, with a focus on the study of the relationship between theimport and export structure of goods trade and the industrial structures. Finally it analyzesRussian economic prospect from the viewpoint of industrial structuring and trade structureupdating.Chapter Four discusses the country (region) structures of Russian goods trade structure.Firstly it analyzes the changes and current state of country (regional) structure of Russiangoods trade, and then it discusses the relations with its main trade partners: such as withEuropean Union, with Commonwealth of Independent States, with Asia Pacific EconomicCooperation, North America and Latin America. It highlights the cooperation of economy andtrade with European Union, Germany, China and Japan; it also analyzes and compares thecurrent state, features, the existing problems and the potential trend with these countries.Chapter Five focuses on the analysis of the development of Russian goods trade and theprospect of structure optimization and updating after Russia enters WTO. This chapter beginswith the general discussion of the international situation that Russian goods trade faces. Itpoints out that Russia is encountered with many crisis and challenges after its entry of WTO,and the fluctuation of energy prices will cause many uncertainties to its development patternscentered in goods trade. This chapter also points out that the protectionism in other countriesis in resurgence and appears in different and invisible modes when the general economy in theworld is in downturn. Therefore, Russia will encounter a more furious challenge brought bythe new economic wave. Then this chapter, after specific analysis of the internationaleconomic situation, generalizes the internal factors to develop goods trade, which highlightsthe analysis of the situations of systems and polities, resources endowment and industries.Based on the above analysis some suggestions are put forward. Lastly, this Chapter analyzesthe prospect of adjustment of Russian foreign trade structure, stating that the adjustment ofeconomic structure is not the focus of Russian economic development in the future; Russiantrade structure will still remain in its lower trade structure; its innovative developmentstrategies will not improve much Russian backward trade in goods structure; tradeliberalization deprives the protection of Russian industries and threatens the foundation oftrade structure optimization; it is hard for Russia to change its goods trade in thecentralization of target markets. This chapter ends with the conclusion that Russia willcontinue its goods trade patterns with its export dominated by energy and natural resources,The Conclusion offers some suggestions and implications for Chinese foreign tradedevelopment, especially for its goods trade.