The New Framework of Global Economic Cooperation: What’s Better and What’s Worse

The United States and most European economies are currently facing very high inflation. Many European Union countries have 9% inflation, the United States has more than 8%. The United States has not experienced such a high rate of inflation since the end of the 1970s or the early 1980s, since Ronald Reagan launched Reaganomics and kicked off many of the processes that have created the modern American economy — Fedor Voytolovskiy, Director, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO).

What we are seeing now, and will see for the next few years, if not decades, is the absolute domination of politics over economics — Konstantin Dolgov, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

The dollar will not remain the global currency. I do not think anyone takes the euro seriously, but the dollar will not be remaining. But this is a very gradual process. Russia is playing an instrumental role in this process: on agricultural and other markets, through the development of our Eurasian economic development, however difficult it might be. It is vital that we continue to work in that area — Konstantin Dolgov, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

In my view, the European Union will cease to exist in geopolitical and geoeconomics terms. It will find it difficult to survive this — Konstantin Dolgov, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

A solution to the Ukrainian crisis could have been found, but no one wanted to look. Not in the capitals of Europe, and still less in Washington. Once again, we are dealing with the subjective factor imposing a systemic, destabilizing influence on the entire economy of the European Union, on relations between Russia and the EU, on pricing on the global oil market and on major regional gas markets — Fedor Voytolovskiy, Director, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO).

The struggle is on two fronts. First – for resources, and that will only get worse. Second – for values, or for domination of values. That will also get worse because it is obvious that Europe is no competition for America. They have gay parades every day, everything is fine from a US viewpoint, with a couple of exceptions. But when you look at us – yes. China –yes. The Islamic world, yes, for sure, and that is something that is not going to change anytime soon — Konstantin Dolgov, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

Maybe it will get better because thinking, including the thinking of the elites and decision makers, is becoming highly constructive. In the Russian Federation we are also looking to new markets, finding new partners, it is a difficult process — Fedor Voytolovskiy, Director, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO).

Let us be honest, not every specific time segment has to be better and worse. When you ride the rollercoaster, there are ups and downs. Down trends and up trends. We will be long-term optimists: if the trend is down, it will switch to growth, or at the very least, a plateau. We can be optimistic that the down trend will be short, and the up will be faster. That this trend will help us, at a minimum, understand the situation better, or create the conditions for growth — Artem Malgin, Vice Rector for Development, MGIMO University.

What is most significant, and unexpected for our counterparts, as they are politely referred to now, is that a year ago we became a net food exporter for the first time in history. There are only a handful of countries in the world that export more food and agricultural products than they import. The best known example is Brazil. But the United States, for instance, is a net food importer these days, not a net exporter. So, this is a tremendous transformation of our agriculture, and our economy as a whole, which we have achieved in just a few years — Sergey Levin, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation.

We have encountered another issue today, where we see a transition from globalization to a policy of protecting national interests… This is extremely important. Many big countries are capable of self-sufficiency: the United States, and the Soviet Union, and Russia after the Soviet Union, are countries with all the human, natural and technological resources to meet their needs for many years. That provides huge potential and benefits for the country, but there is also a downside if you think about it. It puts us in the position where we do not need to think about integrating our economies. We do not need to think of building long-distance economic alliances, and that often leads to us choosing to build our international relations with political unions and alliances prevailing — Ivan Eremin, Chief Executive Officer, FederalPress; Deputy Chairman, Public Council of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.

The impact on manufacturing has been far worse, of course: we have lost our partners in high-tech sectors. What should we do in this situation? We understand that making a quick breakthrough is tough, and we will probably not be able to move forwards across the board, that all the technology we got from the West can be found at home and developed for, as they say, import substitution — Vladimir Salamatov, General Director, Research Center "International Trade and Integration"; Chairman of the Committee on Trade and Economic Relations with Trading Partner Countries, EAEU Business Council.

We have been talking for years about turning to the East. It was a popular agenda. But in reality, besides talk, often there was nothing deeper, so today, when doing business with our partners in China or other countries, we understand that we need to overcome our internal “tectonic” processes. Businesses are simply not ready to work with both sides of the models typical in national business relations. It would seem, going by public discussion and declarations, that we are a country open to investment, to working with Russia, but in practice it is very difficult to work with foreign banks. A declaration is one thing, the facts are [another]… — Ivan Eremin, Chief Executive Officer, FederalPress; Deputy Chairman, Public Council of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.

We are forced, that is, it is a good thing that we have to do this, it is a new way of working, we build relationships with banks in friendly countries, we have to support those trade relations, build financing and settlement chains. I have to admit that the situation is not as great as we would like, our new trade partners, I would not say that their banking and finance systems are aiming to build relationships with us. That all results in exporters having to change their business model to fit new models of work, including vertically integrated logistics: what we see now is that more and more players are concerned with, for example, acquiring their own tanker fleet. That is one example and one consequence of what is happening — Ivan Dun, First Vice President, Head of Syndicated and International Finance Department, Gazprombank.

Will the China – United States military and political confrontation develop is the key question for the next five years. Because we can see that the US economy and the Chinese economy are the twin pillars of the global economy. For us, the Chinese market, Asian markets, are extremely important — Fedor Voytolovskiy, Director, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO).

We have assumed from the outset that our partners are not waiting for us, so we chose Asia, Africa and Middle East as our key markets, they three main regions, and the EAEC countries, so the effects of sanctions and restrictions have not forced any sudden changes in strategy or tactics. These correctly determined priorities have enabled us to maintain our course even in these difficult conditions. As of the end of August, we have increased exports by 15% over the same period last year, which very few sectors of the economy are capable of doing — Sergey Levin, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation.

Our partners are BRICS, our partners are SCO, and we Russians need to understand that in a year, in a month or even in 10 years, the situation where we find ourselves, which the previous speakers have described so well, will not change. We will live and work in a harsh environment, but we have plenty of examples of how we can find unorthodox solutions in this situation and achieve excellent results. I think we can do it — Vladimir Salamatov, General Director, Research Center "International Trade and Integration"; Chairman of the Committee on Trade and Economic Relations with Trading Partner Countries, EAEU Business Council.

The trend on the Asian market is different: here, it is easier, relatively easier. The pandemic is over. The leading Asian countries do not have any radical green transition policies. Although there were fairly serious restrictions in China and other Asian-Pacific region countries, and here there is some hope to see the foundations for the recovery of the global economy and growth — Fedor Voytolovskiy, Director, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO).

We should probably not simply look for partners, but create free economic zones with foreign companies, so that we can to a certain degree overcome the sanctions, including secondary sanctions. That is there should be a conversation about substantially rethinking the industrial action we should take to maintain a high technological level in this sector — Vladimir Salamatov, General Director, Research Center "International Trade and Integration"; Chairman of the Committee on Trade and Economic Relations with Trading Partner Countries, EAEU Business Council.

I see that there are also prospects for developing mutual and tourist exchanges from our side, maybe also transport and logistics. I can see this is promising and our government will agree. Trade and partnership with our companies will expand in the near future: the rate of growth of trade between Russia and Mongolia allows us to set a target of trade reaching USD 5 billion in 2026. USD 2 billion is a big target now, and we will play the key role, just Russia and Mongolia. It is important to work on balancing bilateral trade, resolving issues relating to free trade — Battogtokh Javzandolgor, Chief Executive Officer, MGIMO Alumni Association in Mongolia.