Page 71 - RusRPTAug22

5.0 External Sector & Trade 5.1 External sector overview
Russian export up in 2Q22, but a lot of capital is leaving the country. After a break of a few months, some information on foreign trade was published in Russia in the central bank's balance of payments statistics, although only on trade in goods and services as a whole.
In the second quarter of the year, Russia earned 20% more income from the export of goods and services than a year earlier, measured in dollars. On the other hand, the dollar's exchange rate has risen considerably since a year ago compared to other currencies in Russia's foreign trade, and, for example, the increase in export revenues of goods and services in euros from a year ago was 35% in the second quarter. Export income has increased mainly due to the increase in the prices of basic commodities exported by Russia.
The data published by Russia confirm that due to the economic recession that has started and foreign export sanctions, the country's imports have shrunk. In the second quarter, Russia's spending on the import of goods and services was more than 20% lower in dollars than a year earlier. In euros, the slide from a year ago was 12%. The drop is quite small compared to the fact that, according to the EU countries' export data, in March-May, EU countries' income from the export of goods to Russia was half the amount in euros compared to a year earlier. Russian data mainly reflect a more moderate slide in Russian imports from other countries (such as China and Turkey).
As a result of the increase in export earnings and the contraction of imports, Russia's balance of foreign trade in goods and services has shown a record surplus this year (almost $160bn in January-June). The surplus of the last four quarters rose to around 13% of GDP in the second quarter of the year. The balance of other income and expenses in the current account has still been quite a bit in deficit. Thus, Russia's current account surplus has also been at its peak this year and over 10% of GDP in the last four quarters.
Regarding the financial balance between Russia and foreign countries, this year's balance of payments published by the central bank only contains aggregated total information on the financial flows of the private sector, the government and the central bank,
71 RUSSIA Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com