Page 46 - bne IntelliNews Country Report: Russia Dec17

has fallen below 7%.
EU countries accounted for 46% of Russian exports, w hile 21% went to Asian countries and 9% to countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. China has recently emerged as Russia's most important individual export market, just nosing out the Netherlands.
The value of goods imports in the first nine months of the year was about $170bn , an increase of 25% y/y.
Meanwhile, the ruble's real effective (trade-weighted) exchange rate (REER) appreciated 21%.
The import breakdown by category was led by machinery, equipment and transport vehicles with 48%, followed by chemical products with 18% and foodstuffs with 13%. About 38% of imported goods came from the EU, 33% from Asia and 8% from the Eurasian Economic Union. China, again the most important individual import country by far, accounted for over 20% of imports.
Russia-China economic relations continue to be dominated by goods trade. Russian exports to China last year were worth approximately 30 billion dollars, while the value of imports from China was about 40 billion dollars. China has been Russia's biggest provider of goods imports for several years, accounting for over 20 % of goods imports. This year China also became Russia's top goods export destination, accounting for 11 % of Russian goods exports in January-August. Oil represents the lion's share of Russia's exports to China. Natural gas exports are expected to start in coming months as the massive Yamal peninsula LNG project, which includes Chinese investors, becomes operative. Pipeline transmission of natural gas is scheduled to begin in December 2019. Services trade between the two countries is much more modest than goods trade, but has been supported e.g. by the recent boom in Chinese tourism. Nearly 1.3 million Chinese tourists visited Russia last year, making them Russia's fourth largest tourist group.
The volume of trade between Russia and Kazakhstan grew by one third in eight months to $11bn , Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Forum of Interregional Cooperation of Russia and Kazakhstan. "Mainly it was thanks to the business initiatives of the regions of Russia and Kazakhstan that mutual trade has significantly grown since the beginning of this year, and in January-August the supplies of goods and services reached $11bn, which is by one third more than in the same period last year," he said. According to Putin, the accumulated Russian investments in Kazakhstan exceeded $10.8bn and Kazakhstan's investments in Russia reached $3bn.
5.2.2 Current account dynamics
Russia’s current account balance looks set to strengthen in the fourth quarter, analysts said after the Russian central bank released balance of payment statistics for October on November 10 showing a current account surplus of $2.3bn compared to a deficit of $0.4bn in the same month a year earlier.
This puts the 10-month current account surplus at $28.9bn vs $14.9bn reported for the 10 months of 2016. These figures suggest an improvement in
46 RUSSIA Country Report December 2017 www.intellinews.com