Page 41 - RusRPTMay19

5.2 Balance of payments, current account
Russia -Trade 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Mar-2018
Trade: External balance on goods and services (USD mn)
148,023 123,679 134,497 111,638 103,425 130,314 48,353
Trade: External balance on goods and services (% of GDP)
6.66 5.39 6.41 8.04 5.17 5.35 /
Trade: Goods exports (BoP) (USD mn)
527,434 523,275 497,763 341,467 285,772 353,547 101,881
Trade: Goods imports (BoP)
335,771 341,337 308,026 193,952 191,671 237,993 57,000
Trade: Current account BPM6 (USD mn)
71,282 34,801 58,432 68,375 25,664 35,350 18,321
Trade: Current account to GDP (%)
3.20 1.40 2.70 4.90 1.90 2.20 /
source: CEIC, World Bank, CBR
Russia’s foreign trade surplus rose 3.8% on the year to US $33.2bn in January–February, the Federal Customs Service said on Monday. The trade share with the E.U. fell to 43.2% from 45.3% in the same period of 2018, with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grew to 31.4% from 29.1%, with the CIS fell to 11.1% from 11.9%, with the Eurasian Economic Union (EurAsEc) to 7.7% from 8.5%. Exports at large increased 0.4% to $66.5bn and imports dropped 2.8% to $33.3bn.
5.2.1 Import/export dynamics
There was very little change in Russia’s trade regime in February with the exports flat at $407bn and imports also flat at $221bn.
China remains at the top of the table as Russia’s largest market buying $59.6bn of exports, or 12.4% of all Russia’s exports, but received $56.4bn of Russian imports, or 22.2% of the total.
Trade between China and Russia continues to grow and turnover topped $100bn in 2018 and is on course to reach the $200bn goal by 2030 that Putin has set. While Russia’s exports are well diversified, a fifth of all Russia’s imports are now coming from China.
Of note exports to Ukraine were up slight from $9.98bn to $10.2bn, whereas imports from Ukraine were flat at $5.77bn, or 2.3% of the total. Russia continues to run a large trade surplus with Ukraine on the other of $5bn a month, despite the de facto war between the two countries and Ukraine remains a top 10 trade partner for Russia, even if its share in the overall trade remains relatively small.
Exports to Turkey were slightly down from $23bn to $22.5bn m/m in February, whereas imports from Turkey were $4.58bn. Russia is running a very large trade surplus with Turkey of $18.5bn – the biggest surplus after the Netherlands, which is centre of Russian offshore companies and so overly important in the statistics.
Trade between China and Russia reached CNY164.8bn ($24.2bn) in the
41 RUSSIA Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com