Russian Policy Of The Pivot To The East: Puzzle Of Exports, Ftas And Eurasian Integration

An idea of lagging Pivot, so that Russian Policy of Pivot to the East Asia cannot last successfully on a long-term basis keeping an extensive lag between political and economic dimensions of the Pivot, becomes widely spread in Russia and abroad. And one of the most inevitable and necessary conditions of bridging this gap together can be found among instruments of trade liberalization with FTAs ahead. Here we should shift our focus from Russian interests to Eurasian economic Union (EAEU) that has a privileged mandate on trade negotiations with third countries and blocs like ASEAN: Russia cannot sign any FTA on its own since 2015. However, this puzzle was relatively poorly studied both in Russia and abroad and this paper attempts to fill this gap. We briefly analyze the scope of trade between Russia and key Asian markets (which still remain mostly limited to North-East Asia) to define the most sensitive export markets for Russia, then we systematize existing barriers that could be potentially eliminated by international trade negotiations and compare them with existing international activity of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). Results of our study clearly demonstrate an objective demand for more intensive EAEU activity on trade liberalization in Asia with a particular focus on non-tariff barriers.