From the standpoint of friendshoring: Russia's trade relations with the regions of the global south

Abstract

The geography of Russia's foreign trade, which is experiencing a period of profound transformational changes, acquires radically new contours. The Western states, which for a long time occupied dominant positions in the exports and imports of the Russian Federation, are being replaced by the countries of the global South – regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. This process has been developing for more than a decade, but has now been radically accelerated in the face of sanctions and restrictions imposed on the Russian economy and trade, and the almost complete curtailment of Russia's business ties with the collective West. The countries of the global South, the informal leader of which is the economically successful China, are promoting their own agenda in the field of international trade, which opens up wide opportunities for Russia, but it also poses a new challenge – the need to build mutually beneficial business relations with dozens of different Asian, African and Latin American countries. Solving this problem requires rebooting the system of Russian foreign trade relations and developing a scientifically based and feasible strategy for cooperation with the regions of the global South. In doing so, it is necessary to take into account both the factors that bring all developing countries closer together and also regional and national specificities, which form an extremely diverse picture of the specific interests of individual States. The scientific novelty of this article, the author of which relies on the fruitful methodology developed by R. I. Khasbulatov, consists in a comparative analysis of trade relations of the Russian Federation with each of the largest regions of the global South: Asia, Africa and Latin America. The paper reveals both the specific features of Russian-Asian, Russian-African and Russian-Latin American trade, and the general features inherent in business relations of domestic enterprises with partners in the global South. The main conclusion of the study is that the development of trade relations with friendly countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America on the principles of friendshoring is becoming a key link in the foreign economic strategy, the main content of the turn of Russia's trade flows from the western (northern) to the eastern (southern) direction.