Prospects for the growth of non-primary non-energy exports of the Russian Federation to the countries of North Africa

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the increased interest in promoting non-primary non-energy exports of the Russian Federation to the markets of North Africa in the context of the emerging global trend of abandoning hydrocarbons, including from Russia. The article presents the results of the analysis of non-primary non-energy exports of Russia to the markets of North Africa by stages of processing based on statistical data on exports from Russia to these states over the past five years. The leading approach to the study of this issue is the method of economic and statistical analysis, which allows a comprehensive examination of economic processes in the sphere of non-energy exports. Also, by applying the Balassa index, an assessment of the comparative advantage of Russia by groups of commodity items in the markets of the countries of the region is given. Based on the data obtained, the author concludes that Russia has prospects for the growth of exports of goods of traditional export specialization, increasing the export of products of medium and upper stages of processing, promoting Russian consumer goods to the markets of North African countries and gives recommendations to support Russian enterprises when entering the North African markets. Also, this study raises the question of the definition of non-primary products, which is a key factor in determining the volume of exports of non-primary non-energy goods in the analysis. Discrepancies were revealed in approaches to classifying products as non-primary in the definitions of the international and Russian classification systems for export products.