Стр. 12 - V

Author : K. Muradov
Deputy Director, Foreign Trade Information and Analysis Center, Assistant Professor, Department of
Statistics and Data Analysis of the School of Economics, National Research University-Higher School
of Economics
Because of the international fragmentation of production with its
cross-border manufacturing cycles, international trade is increasingly
seen as not just sales of goods by one country to another but as a
network of global chains of value creation. A product is often said
to have been "made in the world" rather than in a specific country.
Can it be imagined that Russian exports, even if they are raw mate-
rials, go through a certain value chain in other Asia-Pacific countries
whereby they are used in manufacturing more complex products
that are afterward exported to ASEAN countries? Or that ASEAN
countries use Russian products to make their own goods and export
them, say, to Japan, the United States, or EU countries? Surely this
is imaginable - modern economics make it quite possible.
Russian exports add much value to goods that are manufactured in ASEAN countries, both to
goods intended for domestic consumption and to those made for export.
What do Russia's economic relations with ASEAN countries are like in terms of value chains?
At the end of the day, a value chain means the use of some goods or services to produce other
goods and services. Exports and imports as such are only surface points of such a chain.
In an earlier study, we showed that the multistage mechanism of value creation is more a feature
of Russian exports to ASEAN countries than the other way round. Russian added value is, in
effect, hidden in reexports of third countries to ASEAN nations or in re-exports from ASEAN
countries to third countries.
Obviously, exports from Russia repeatedly undergo processing and cross more than one border
en route to ASEAN countries.
Exports from ASEAN countries to Russia on average had 1.9 borders to cross in 2011 compared
to 1.8 in 2005 and 1.5 in 1995. The reason is that manufactured products ready for final con-
sumption make a larger proportion of ASEAN exports than goods of this category do of Russ-
ian exports. This places ASEAN countries, unlike Russia, in the middle, or close to the end of,
a value chain.
To sum up, Russian exports add much value to goods that are manufactured in ASEAN countries,
both to goods intended for domestic consumption and to those made for export. Most likely,
more sophisticated databases will be created in future, and so more detailed studies of value
chains between Russia and ASEAN countries will be possible.
Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
Russia and ASEAN Countries in Global Value Chains