• GDP: US$2.23 trillion (2009 estimate).
• Main imports: Machinery and equipment, consumer goods, medicine, meat and sugar.
• Main exports: Petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood and wood products, chemicals and manufactured goods.
• Main trade partners: Germany, Ukraine, China (PR), Italy and The Netherlands.
Economy
Russia has huge deposits of oil and gas (its major export earners) as well as coal and minerals including gold, diamonds, nickel, manganese, copper, iron ore and phosphates. Energy products and heavy industry (production of vehicles, metal goods, construction materials and machinery) are the kernel of Russia's industrial sector. Textiles and chemicals are other important industries. Overall the economic system remains weak and infrastructure and transparency poor. Only Russia's vast energy wealth has managed to override this problem, though the world financial crisis has re-exposed the fundamental weakness of the Russian economic system.
Since the devaluation of the Rouble and Russia's calamitous default on its international debts in 1998, the economy has undergone a significant recovery with average annual growth of 5% in the last five years (the figure in 2007 was an incredible 10.9%). The government has got on top of the hyper-inflation that caused so much damage in the initial stages of the reform process. At 13% (2008), current inflation is high by recent Western standards but not unmanageable. Unemployment runs at 6.2% (2008 estimate). Russia hosts a substantial informal or ‘grey' economy in which between 25 and 40% of the workforce are engaged to some extent. Russia's economy grew by 6% in 2008.
Business Etiquette
As a result of recent economic changes that have taken place in the Russian Federation, there are now many thousands of private companies in operation and international business relations have become active. The main business centres are Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok.
Office hours: Mon-Fri 0900-1800.
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