Our 2 Percent
Is Russia’s membership in the G8 justified? What’s the extent of our integration into the G8? What’s the real weight of Russia? In part, all these questions could be answered based on statistics of the G8 turnover.
2005 aggregate exports of the G7 reached $5.1 trillion, the imports stood at $5.7 trillion, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Most of G7 states have the average turnover of $0.7 trillion to $1 trillion. The leaders are the United States ($2.5 trillion) and Germany ($1.8 trillion).
Russia’s turnover is just $0.37 trillion, nearly half as much as posted by the least weighty partners of G7 – Italy and Canada. As to the world share, Russia accounts for the meager 2 percent, and its bond to the G7 states is much weaker than the inner ties of the latter. Their share in Russia’s turnover is around 27 percent.
The key product of Russia is certainly fuel and energy, which covered 64 percent of the country’s exports past year – another difference from the G7, where industrial goods generally account for 75 percent to 80 percent of turnover.
But it is exactly the reason why Russia’s influence on the world economy is much greater than 2 percent of the world trade. The dependence of the G7 on Russia’s energy resources is hard to overestimate.
When speaking about the gas dependence, gas import accounted for 44 percent of Europe’s consumption in 2005, and Russia covered 60 percent of the import. Germany gets 45 percent of gas from Russia, Standard & Poor’s says, Italy and France import 28 percent each.
Though not so evident, the oil dependence could be also spotted. Germany imports around a third of oil from Russia, according to British Petroleum. Italy receives a fourth and France gets 18 percent. The world biggest energy consumer, the United States, imports no more than 2 percent from Russia, but it gets a lot of fuel from France and Italy, for which Russia is among oil producers.
Moreover, uranium is gaining popularity worldwide, and Russia’s standing on the market is solid. Russia’s uranium covers 55 percent of the U.S. market and ensures production of 10 percent of electric power there, according to the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute. The E.U. quota on our uranium is 20 percent of the market, but it is likely to step up to 25 percent.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 11, 2006
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