Scenarios of Russia’s Development under the Changing Role of Foreign Trade

The large-scale sanctions pressure on Russia inevitably changes the direction of our country’s cooperation with the global economy. At the same time, a structural restructuring of the Russian economy itself is taking place. In these circumstances, it is important to determine the role of a promising foreign economic strategy in achieving Russia’s national development goals, identify key areas of cooperation with foreign countries, and adjust economic policy instruments accordingly. One of the key challenges in the medium term is restrictions on increasing the volume of commodity exports, which narrows the possibilities for using export revenues to increase economic growth. Under these conditions, reducing dependence on imports is becoming one of the priorities of economic policy. The growth of competition and conflict in the global economy will be one of the important factors in the formation of trade and economic relations between Russia and foreign countries. There are also objective structural imbalances in Russia, characterized by an intertwining of internal and external factors, including: a shortage in the labor market; an outstripping increase in defense spending; exhaustion of the capacity utilization potential; the inability of the domestic civil engineering industry to provide the necessary supply of high-quality equipment for the domestic market; continued high dependence on imported equipment when it is in short supply; the risk of a reduction in the current account in the context of sanctions pressure on Russian exports and continued capital outflow. Maintaining the competitiveness of the economy will require Russia to create a developed scientific and industrial circuit based on domestic research and development. While considering possible economic development scenarios, it is shown that achieving acceptable GDP growth rates in the medium term is possible with the outpacing dynamics of non-primary exports, reduced dependence on imports, a stable balance of payments, and restrained capital outflow.