Russian regions and their foreign trade

Abstract

For large, sparse and heterogeneous Russia, regional aspects are of utmost importance. Russian economy is becoming more open, but this process goes unevenly, aggravating existing disparities among regions. The goal of this paper is to examine diversity of Russian regions and its relationship with regions’ foreign trade. We start with the general overview of Russian regional structure, examine commodity structure and geography of foreign trade by federal districts of Russian Federation and discuss the factors influencing foreign trade patterns of specific regions. Regression analysis is used for explaining regional import per capita and for testing dependence of incomes on foreign trade. Significance of export incomes for regions, special role of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad in import flows and low correlation between regional export and import are among the main conclusions