Relationship of the Russian Far East with domestic and foreign markets (case study of trade interactions)

The Far East is the “contact zone” of the Russian economy with the countries of the Asia-Pacific, and the realization of the economic potential of the Russian macroregion is possible with the reduction of various barriers hindering the intensifi cation of its trade interactions with both foreign and Russian markets. The purpose of the research is to assess the comparative costs for outgoing and incoming trade fl ows of the Far Eastern regions, as well as to determine the source of generation of trade barriers in the interaction of the Far Eastern regions with various markets. We showed that the increase in foreign trade of the Far East in the long term was mainly due to exports, while its relatively low intensity was compensated by the increasing attraction from close and large foreign markets. With regard to incoming trade fl ows, the intensity of interactions of the Far Eastern regions with the Russian market was higher than with the foreign one. The results of the assessment showed that initially the comparative transport costs for the delivery of imports were signifi cantly lower than the corresponding costs for the import of products from the Russian market to the Far East, but in the 2010s, they became comparable. This circumstance contributed to the fact that in the context of the general tightening of the rules for the import of goods and the deployment in the western Russian regions of the production of goods replacing imported ones, products from the rest of Russia began to be actively imported to the Far East market. In this regard, within the previous decade, there has been an actual “binding” of the Far Eastern regions to the Russian market in terms of the import of goods from other Russian regions, as well as to foreign markets due to the expansion of exports. Consequently, the macroregion plays the role of one of the key elements of a nationwide mechanism for the withdrawal, consolidation and centralized distribution of foreign trade rents.