Capital City: Moscow
	It is %T:%M %A in Moscow, Kazan, Saint Petersburg It is %T:%M %A in Perm, Chelyabinsk It is %T:%M %A in Novosibirsk, Omsk It is %T:%M %A in Kigali

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Economic trends

Russia's economic reforms have made considerable progress since Mr Putin became President in 2000; although large and corrupt bureaucracy still remains an obstacle to the reform implementation. Russian GDP growth and the surplus/deficit in the state budget are closely linked to world oil prices. The GDP growth rate was 9.7% in 2006, slackened to 8.1% in 2007. The recent unexplained killings of dissidents in Russia have fuelled concerns about Russia’s lawlessness and are going to harm the inflow of foreign investments especially in the growing private sector. IMF forecasts GDP growth to slow down at 7.5% in 2008. Inflation remains high and is estimated at around 7.0% in 2007. The current-account surplus will narrow gradually, but is still projected reach nearly USD 75bn (5.7% of GDP) in 2008.

Main branches of industry

For its great size, Russia has relatively little area suited for agriculture because of its unfavourable climatic conditions. Agriculture contributes around 5.6% to the GDP and employs 13% of the active population. Northern areas of the country concentrate mainly on livestock, and the southern parts and western Siberia produce grains. Restructuring of former state farms has been an extremely slow process. Russia is rich in mineral resources and is a leading producer and exporter of diamonds, nickel, and platinum in addition to oil & gas. Russia is the largest producer of natural gas and the second largest producer of petroleum in the world. Russia is one of the most industrialized of the former Soviet republics. However, years of very low investment have left much of Russian industry antiquated and highly inefficient. Russia inherited most of the defence industrial base of the Soviet Union, so arms are the single-largest manufactured goods export category in the country. After the 1998 financial crises, the banking sector has not undergone a complete restructuring yet. Services account for 60% of the GDP. Russian market's major opportunities are capital goods, food-processing products, and chemicals.

International trade

Global prices continue to have a major effect on export performance of Russia because commodities (particularly oil, natural gas, metals, and timber) comprise 80% of Russian exports. The foreign trade contributes nearly 57% to country’s GDP. Its top three export partners are: the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. Russia's top three import partners are: Germany, Ukraine and China. Russia mainly imports machinery, vehicles, electric & electronic equipment, and pharmaceutical products.