Comparative Advantage: Products Mapping of the Russian Agricultural Exports

Abstract

This paper contains an analysis of the Russian foreign trade in agricultural products and foodstuffs from the two points of view: international competitiveness and country’s trade balance.The aim of the analysis is to distinguish from the total agricultural export flows specific groups of products according to their comparative advantage (or disadvantage) and trade balance, to trace changes that have occurred in this groups over the period and to explain why these changes have taken place.The analysis is based on the combination of two indices i.e. Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage, and Trade Balance Index that were used to represent an analytical tool named “products mapping”.During the study, from the total export flows we distinguished a group of products (Group A) that includes 5% of the exported goods, but accounts for about 50% of the value of total agricultural exports. Items in this group have a comparative advantage and positive trade balance. The greatest weight in the group A has wheat.There was also identified the group D where 80% of items account for only about 30% of total exports, but 95-99% of the total imports. These items have comparative disadvantage and negative trade balance. But there was a reduction in the value of group D, while the group A has been steadily growing. These trends can be considered as a strengthening of the comparative advantages of Russian agricultural export.