Federal Customs Service: in 2022 Russia will record a foreign trade surplus
According to the results of the outgoing year, the foreign trade surplus in Russia will beat a record, despite the difficult December for energy exports. This was stated by First Deputy Head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) Ruslan Davydov, RIA Novosti reports.
“We have overtaken last year by the value of foreign trade turnover. We are likely to have a record trade surplus mainly due to export volumes. Even December won’t change the overall picture for energy carriers,” he said.
At the same time, noted Davydov, there is already a drop in energy exports.
The U.S. share in Russia’s exports is less than 2%, says the first deputy head of the FCS. The turnover between the countries has fallen by more than half. At the same time a record turnover with China was set: its growth was 30%. In November it was reported that the trade turnover between Moscow and Beijing broke the record early: over the past ten months of the year it increased by 33% compared to the same period last year, up to $153,9 billion.
EU sanctions imposing a ceiling on oil from Russia and an embargo on maritime supplies took effect in December. According to Kpler, Russian crude exports were down 22 percent this month compared with the average for the current year. According to the company’s analysts, Russia’s average daily offshore shipments of oil dropped to 2.5 million barrels in December. India, China, Turkey and Bulgaria remain its customers, according to Kpler.
In addition, exports of Russian gas also decreased. As Bloomberg wrote, citing the head of Gazprom Alexei Miller, the company has sent more than 100 billion cubic meters to countries outside of the former Soviet Union, which is 46% less than last year. Gazprom’s deliveries to the EU have been declining for several months, including due to the refusal of European countries to pay for them in rubles.
Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russian gas exports would fall by a quarter and production by 12 percent compared to last year. However, he said, at the same time EU countries have increased imports of Russian LNG: at the end of the year this figure is expected to reach 21 billion cubic meters.
At the same time the price ceiling for the Russian gas will come into force in February next year. It will be 1,180 euros per 1,000 cubic meters per megawatt hour (about $2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters).