Page 50 - RusRPTDec20
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5.0 External Sector & Trade 5.1 External sector overview
Trade has held up pretty well and by october was almost back to 2019 levels, lifted by a recovery in oil prices. In general the balance of payments has been helped by the faster fall in imports that have helped keep the current account in the black despite fears of it falling to nothing, or even going negative, in 2020.
Still the balance of goods trade fell close to zero in the summer months, but had started to recover as the winter approached.
By October the export of goods jumped by $7bn whereas the import of goods was up too, but by only $1bn leaving a $10bn surplus for that month. That is down from the $14bn good trade surplus in October 2019, but up from the circa $5bn positive balance during the summer months of 2020.
50 RUSSIA Country Report December 2020 www.intellinews.com
