Page 53 - RusRPTDec23

When compared to the same period in 2022, exports decreased by 29.4% (in the 9M 2022 these amounted to US$448.9 billion), however, imports increased by 18.3% (US$180.3 billion last year).
From the various information gathered it looks like imports in general grew by around 10%. This has been supported by supplies from “friendly countries”, and increasingly creative financial and logistics solutions.
Oil, and also other Russian exports have been, and are now exported at price discounts to allow for the necessarily byzantine means to address the sanctions restrictions and restructure the flow of trade. This can be expected to improve further into 2024 and beyond as the paths and inroads against trade restrictions normalize further. These include parallel imports and imports from middle-men in mainly the CIS countries, who buy mainly EU goods on Russia’s behalf and then sell them on.
According to the Russian Central Bank, while in Q1 2023 export decline in value terms reached 32% year-on-year in Q1 2023, it slowed to 23.9% in Q3 2023. If one compares the period from January to September of this year with that of two years ago (nine months of 2021), exports decreased by only 7%, a non-critical passing bump in the geoeconomic road.
As for imports, their growth is largely due to the recovery of economic activity in Russia after the recession in 2022 and the innovative adaptations made by supply chain operators and logistics companies in handling sanctions, and the logistical and financial restrictions.
The increases in the value of imports has also been partly influenced by global inflation and the growth of transaction costs while making key changes in suppliers and trade routes. According to the Federal Customs Service, imports in value terms grew by 18.3% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2023. However, when compared to the first nine months of 2021, imports are now at the same level they were two years ago, so one can say they are back to pre-Ukraine conflict levels. It would also be fair to observe that active trade development with friendly countries such as those in BRICS+, the SCO, ASEAN, EAEU, MENA, AfCFTA, and LatAm nations are key to assisting in this recovery process and establishing the future realignments in global trade.
Russian exports to Europe for the first nine months of 2023 decreased 3.3 times, while Europe’s share in Russian exports dropped from 48% to 20%. This loss was for the most part replaced by an increase in Russian exports to Asia which grew by 10.3%, while its share in total exports increased from 46% to over 71%.
Other export destinations (Africa, North America, and Oceania) still occupy less than 5% of each of the total structure of Russian exports. Therefore, despite the strong relative changes – exports to Africa grew by 54% year-on-year, while exports to North America fell by 1.7 times – they do not truly contribute to Russia’s foreign trade in any meaningful manner at this juncture.
53 RUSSIA Country Report December 2023 www.intellinews.com