Latest Articles about Economics

China’s Trade With Europe Bypasses Russia in Both the North and the South
Russia has long counted on its geographic location between the Asia-Pacific region and Europe to cement its relationship with China. However, Beijing increasingly views Russia as merely a supplier of raw materials (Svobodnaya Pressa, April 27)—a view reinforced anew on Monday (December 2), by the... MORE

New Revelations of China’s Growing Interests in Ukraine
Chinese billionaire and co-founder/former executive chairman of the Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, visited Ukraine on November 7. During his trip, which, started in Kharkiv, he attended the Kyiv International Economic Forum, where he delivered a keynote speech (Kh.suspilne.media, November 7). While in Kharkiv, Ma met... MORE

Exploiting the Vacuums: Russia and North Africa in the Wake of the Sochi Summit
The Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum, held on October 23–24, in the Russian resort city of Sochi, displayed Moscow’s renewed ambition to play a significant role in Africa (TASS, October 20; The Africa Report, August 19). Increasingly, the Kremlin perceives the African continent as a... MORE

Renewed Corruption in State-Owned Agrarian Fund Hurts Land Reform in Ukraine
On November 13, Ukraine’s parliament (the Verkhovna Rada), in its first reading, supported lifting the farmland sales moratorium (Rada.gov.ua, November 13). No one doubts that the bill will be signed into law by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the end of the year. If so, this... MORE

The Three ‘Faces’ of Russia’s AI Strategy
On October 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the “National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the Period Until 2030.” The documents calls for “accelerated development of AI,” including an emphasis on “research, availability of information and computing resources for users” as... MORE

Why Mozambique Is Outsourcing Counter-Insurgency to Russia: Hidden Loans and Naval Bases
*To read the companion piece to this article, please click here. At the heart of Mozambique’s reinvigorated relationship with Moscow (see EDM, October 29) is a financial scandal that almost ruined the country. Specifically, corrupt elements in the southeast African state’s Frente de Libertação de... MORE

Moscow Pressing for International Recognition of Expansive Arctic Claims
Last spring (April 2019), after almost 20 years of Russian lobbying, a subgroup of the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf declared that much of the Arctic seabed is an extension of Russia’s land mass and thus a potential exclusion zone.... MORE

Wave of Optimism Sweeps Through Ukrainian Economy
While international financial organizations have been warning about a global economic slowdown and revising growth forecasts downwards, Ukraine has been among the few economies for which forecasts were revised upward recently. The World Bank (WB) now expects that Ukraine will grow by 3.4 percent this... MORE

Putin Sees Africa as a Battleground Against the West
President Vladimir Putin views Africa not as an end in itself, even when he and Russia obviously benefit directly (Rosbalt, January 19; see EDM, October 15), but rather as a battlefield in his renewed cold war against the West. This Soviet-style approach contains within it... MORE

Putin’s Gulf Visit Yields Three Energy Deals, Sets Stage for More
Russian President Vladimir Putin pried loose a couple of energy investment deals from Saudi Arabia on his latest visit to the region, on October 14 and 15 (TASS, Kommersant, October 14), but their total value reached only hundreds of millions of dollars, not the billions... MORE