/ world today news/ In 2022, the share of Russia in the trade turnover of the European Union has decreased more than twice
For many years, Russia’s main trading partner was the European Union. According to the FCS, in 2020 the share of the EU in Russia’s foreign trade turnover amounted to 33.8%; and in 2021 it increases to 35.9%.
For the EU, Russia has consistently ranked fifth in the list of leading trading partners in recent years (after the US, China, the UK and Switzerland). Thus, in the EU, exports to Russia in 2020 represent 4.11%; and the import – 5.10%.
February 24, 2022 and the collective West’s sanctions against Russia changed that picture. As you know, since March of last year, the Federal Customs Service has almost completely stopped publishing data on foreign trade of the Russian Federation. Now the statistics have been partially restored, but the FCS still does not give the geographical structure of foreign trade. We must use the “reflected light”, namely the customs statistics of the partner countries of the Russian Federation. Including Eurostat statistics.
Overall, in 2022 trade turnover between Russia and the EU increased by 2.3% to 258.6 billion euros, an eight-year high. Russia’s foreign trade turnover in value terms also grew with many other partners.
It can be calculated that in the total foreign trade turnover of Russia in the past year, the share of the EU was about 30 percent. There is no revolution. The EU’s foreign trade relations with Russia continued to develop, but less dynamically than with other countries (China, India).
However, behind the average values of trade turnover between the EU and the Russian Federation, there are multidirectional dynamics of exports and imports. Exports of goods from Russia to the EU increased by a quarter last year to 203.4 billion euros. This is slightly less than the historical maximum reached in 2012 (203.6 billion euros). In the ranking of exporters, Russia was in fourth place at the end of the year. Our country is overtaken only by China, the USA and Great Britain.
But imports from the EU to Russia fell by 38.1% to 55.2 billion euros. The EU’s trade deficit with Russia reached a record 148.2 billion euros, double the figure for 2021. At the same time, the monthly figures for the first quarter of last year are strikingly different from the monthly figures for the last quarter.
According to data provided by Eurostat, Russia’s share in EU imports was 9.5% in January and February and 4.3% in December. Russia’s share of EU exports was around 4.0% in January and February, falling to 2.0% in December
So we have a more than two-fold reduction in Russia’s share of the EU’s trade turnover over the past year.
As for natural gas, Russia accounted for 35% of imports of this energy resource in the European Union in the first quarter of last year, while in the fourth quarter the share of Russian supplies fell to 18%. And this is how the shares of supplies from Russia look like in the 1st and 4th quarters for some other product groups (in %):
Coal – 44 and 0
Oil – 27 and 15
Fertilizers – 32 and 20
Nickel – 49 and 40
Cast iron and steel – 14 and 6.
The European Union quickly adapted to the conditions of the sanctions war against Russia. The most radical was the restructuring of coal – the EU completely abandoned Russian coal. Substitution of Russian imports was carried out by increasing supplies from many countries.
Most of the replacement came from supplies from the United States. Thus, for oil, the US share of EU imports increased from 8% in the first quarter to 10% in the fourth quarter. For fertilizers – from 0 to 9%, for natural gas – from 12 to 21%.
Sanctions regarding supplies of high-tech products from the EU to Russia remain particularly severe. An important commodity group that fell under the sanctions restrictions is machinery and equipment. If in January 2022 the supply of these goods from the EU to the Russian Federation in terms of value amounted to 2.960 million euros, then in December they were only 1.013 million euros. Almost a threefold reduction.
The decreasing trends in trade between the EU and the Russian Federation can also be tracked using monthly indicators. Thus, in January 2022, exports from Russia to the EU amounted to EUR 20.0 billion, its maximum value was recorded in March (EUR 21.8 billion), after which it fell to EUR 10.3 billion in December. Imports from the EU to Russia in January last year amounted to 8.6 billion euros, and in December it was half as much – 4.3 billion euros.
There are preliminary estimates for trade between the EU and Russia for the first quarter of this year. In March 2023, the supply of goods from Russia to the EU amounted to only 4.0 billion euros. For comparison: in March last year, this figure was 23.5 billion euros. A nearly six-fold decline year-on-year.
„ Deliveries in March were the lowest since 2002 and half the worst since the crisis in 2009 and 2016, according to Eurostat. Compared to the worst month of the COVID crisis, imports from Russia to the EU have decreased by 25%, and compared to the average supply in 2018-2019, a drop of more than three times. notes the Spydell Finance Telegram channel.
But average monthly imports from the EU to Russia in the first quarter of this year amounted to 3.8 billion euros. For comparison: last year the average monthly indicator was 4.6 billion euros, and the previous year – 7.4 billion euros. We did not manage to achieve a complete blockade, but compared to the previous year, we observed an almost double decrease in monthly imports from the EU.
If we extrapolate the trends from the previous year, we can assume that by the end of 2023 a complete reset of trade relations between Russia and the European Union is possible. There is no second such crisis in Russia’s trade relations with Europe.
Even in the 1930s trade between the USSR and Europe continued; Europe bought grain, oil, iron ore, metals, timber and other raw materials from the Soviet state and supplied us with machinery and equipment. Today, Europe is on the brink of a major economic downturn.
Will this help to reverse the process of limiting trade relations between Russia and the EU? Or “the window to Europe”, pierced by Peter the Great, will it close completely?
Translation: ES
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