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position was broadly balanced, as the state provided capital to counterbalance the private equity deficit with foreign investors buying a larger amount of federal bonds on the secondary market.
Russia’s foreign trade surplus fell 16% on the year to $147.9bn in January–November, the central bank said in January. The surplus fell “mainly because of a decrease of fuel and energy goods exports due to unfavorable global prices,” the central bank said.
5.2.1 Import/export dynamics
Russia’s trade regime remains very stable and diversified. One of the notable developments has been the growing importance of China as a destination for exports.
China’s share in Russia’s exports has increased from 12.5% in January 2018 worth a total of $60.1bn then to 13% but worth almost exactly the same $60.2bn as of November 2019, the most recent data available. Indeed, the dollar value of Russia’s exports over the last year has been almost static. That was not the case in 2017 when exports rapidly accelerated from $45.5bn exported in March 2018 to China from Russia.
The import story from China to Russia is very similar. China accounted for $58.3bn of imports in November 2019 or 22.2% of the total, only marginally higher than the $56.1bn of imports at the start of last year, or the same 22.2% share of Russia’s imports. However, the 2019 imports were still a gain on the $51.7bn of good Russia imported from China in March 2018.
There is a lot of politics behind these numbers as both Russia and China remain largely protected markets.
The value of goods and services traded between Israel and Russia exceeded $5bn in both 2018 and 2019, taking the figure to above pre-crisis levels, Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin has said, according to the Jerusalem Post. “Our trade volume, at least, according to the Israeli system, both in 2018 and 2019 exceeded $5bn. And, if for many years we were just below the $4bn mark and could not return to the pre-crisis level of $4bn, in the last two years we not only got back to that level, but also exceeded it,” Elkin said addressing a recent meeting of the Russia-Israel Business Dialogue Forum, organized by the Israeli-Russian Business Council in Jerusalem.
Russia has exported 26.1mn tonnes of grain since the start of the current agricultural year on July 1, 2019 through January 23, 2020, a 15.5% fall on the year, the Agriculture Ministry said citing the Federal Customs Service. Russia’s combined grain exports amounted to 43.3mn tonnes in the 2018–2019 agricultural year, including 35.2mn tonnes of wheat. The ministry sees grain exports in the 2019–2020 agricultural year at 45mn tonnes, including 36mn tonnes of wheat.
Russia's agriculture ministry plans to set a quota of 20mn tonnes for grain exports in the first half of 2020, Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a draft of the ministry's proposal. This follows comments last
38 RUSSIA Country Report February 2020 www.intellinews.com
