Geographical aspects of Russia’s participation in the international movement of capital

Abstract

Extent of Russia’s participation in the international movement of capital. Developed countries are domi� nant exporters and importers of capital in the world, while less developed countries (emerging markets) occupy a secondary position. Thus, in general, in 2000–2008, their capital exports amounted to 4.131 trillion USD, while imports stood at 5.439 tril� lion USD (see Table 1), i.e., 10 and 12% of world exports and imports of capital, respectively. The low share of less developed countries (emerg� ing markets) in world exports of capital is primarily due to their level of economic development. They have not yet accumulated sufficient capital resources, espe� cially, real capital, and, most importantly, at the stage of early industrialization and, moreover, at the active stage of industrialization the need for capital is enor� mous. It can be seen from the fact that the rate of gross capital formation (the ratio of the real, i.e., nonfinan� cial, capital to GDP) in less developed countries is higher than in the group of developed countries. With regard to capital imports, the low level of economic development in emerging markets (it usually corre� lates with indicators of the investment climate) pre� vents the import of capital. In a huge group of countries with emerging markets (Table 2 only shows twenty countries of this group, which are leading in terms of GDP), according to the absolute volume of exports and imports of capital, Russia is only second to China (China’s GDP in 2008 exceeded that of Russia by 2.7 times at the exchange rate) and far superior to Brazil, India, and other lead� ing emerging markets. In 2000–2008, Russia’s share in world exports and imports of capital amounted to 1.4 and 1.1%, while these figures were 1.6 and 2.3% in China, 0.3 and 0.7% in Brazil, and 0.1 and 0.7% in India, respectively. Orientation of Russia’s exports and imports of cap� ital towards offshore countries. The Bank of Russia