Michael J. Bradshaw

Abstract

During the Soviet period, central control over foreign economic relations enabled for-eign trade to address national economic problems. In geographical terms, funds generated by Siberia's resource exports were used to finance imports of western technology and agricultural products that were largely consumed in the European regions. In the post-Soviet period the level of central control is much reduced, but there is continuity in terms of the commodity structure of Russia's exports and the geographical consequences of foreign trade and investment activity. Now, as in the Soviet period, Russia's foreign economic relations serve to reinforce domestic patterns of regional development, in particular the core-periphery relationship between the Eu-ropean and Siberian regions of the country.

Keywords: Russia, foreign economic relations, regional development

Michael J. Bradshaw [mjb41@le.ac.uk], Department of Geography, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LEI 7RU