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478696
Fri, 01/26/2018 - 09:24
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Russia’s better business climate led to increased trade between Moscow and Tokyo, expert says

MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The rising trade turnover between Moscow and Tokyo reflects the improved business environment in Russia, but bilateral trade has not yet returned its pre-crisis level, head of research department in the Japan Association for Trade with Russia & NIS (ROTOBO) Takafumi Nakai told TASS on Thursday. He commented on an earlier report about Japan’s Finance Ministry indicating that bilateral trade turnover had surged 21% year-on-year in dollars and reached almost $20 bln. "The growth in trade is tied to the Russian economy being on the rebound. Oil and cars are the key goods in our export-import operations, and are highly sensitive to market fluctuations. That’s why the overall situation with bilateral turnover is strongly influenced by the situation in the Russian economy and Japanese business hails its improvement," the expert said. "The trade turnover between our countries amounted to almost $20 bln last year but it is far from the 2013 figure, when it had reached $34.8 bln," the economist pointed out. "Trade had been declining for three years in a row and only now has it just started recovering. Japan’s export to Russia also shows weak growth. It is still too early to speak about a full-scale recovery in bilateral trade at this point in time," he added. "In short, we look forward to a stable improvement in the Russian economy," the expert said. "We shared opinions with a team of economists in Moscow in December. The bulk of them believed that economic growth in Russia would be 1-2% in 2018, just like in 2017. This cannot be regarded as a strong figure. An opinion was also expressed that the country needs structural reforms for stable economic growth. Japan’s business sector will keep a close eye on Russia’s business strategy after the presidential elections scheduled for this March," he noted. Read more

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