Chemical industry turns to the East

As part of the Khimia 2023 conference programme a discussion on Turning East was held. The industry experts spoke about their collaboration experience with businesses in Eastern countries.

The moderator of the discussion, Dmitry Semyagin, editor of the Rupec information and analytical centre, in his opening remarks outlined current trends in foreign trade and spoke about the development of logistics chains between Russia and Asian countries.

“After 2022, our focus changed from European markets to Asian markets,” said Dmitry Semyagin. “There has been a significant increase in the volume of Russia’s trade relations with Eastern countries. For example, in 2022, trade turnover with China increased by 29%, with India by 2.4 times, with Indonesia by 40%. And so it is with many countries of the conventional East. Most analysts agree that the volume of trade relations will continue to grow in the future.”

“If we talk about the chemical industry, we can distinguish four main directions,” continued the speaker. “The first is the import of chemical products: raw materials, semi-finished and finished products. The second direction is supply of equipment and technologies. Thirdly, Eastern countries have become new markets for Russian products and partially for technologies. First, we are talking about large-capacity chemistry. Fourthly, Eastern countries have become transit countries in terms of re-export and parallel imports.”

Despite the fact that Russian entrepreneurs have already been working in the new conditions for a year and a half, difficulties in doing business with Eastern countries remain, e.g., in logistics, legal regulation, insufficient transport, mutual settlements and simply knowing the cultural peculiarities of various countries.

Vice-President, Head of the Legal Committee at the Association of Exporters and Importers Arthur Leer, Chairman at the Russian-Asian Business Council Maxim Kuznetsov, Director at AsiaHim Eva Karenina, Deputy Director at Soyuzexpertiza ANO at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Alexey Zavadsky, and other experts shared their experience in solving such problems and practice of working with Eastern countries.

Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO