And the winners are… the Chinese! In the latest ranking of Forbes Of the fifty largest foreign companies present in Russia, eleven come from the powerful Asian neighbor, with whom Vladimir Putin promised to launch a “new era” collaboration. In a month, at the BRICS summit (which brings together Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and, since 1998,Ahem January, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran), in Kazan on the banks of the Volga, from 22 to 24 October, the head of the Kremlin should once again greet his “friend” Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, to whom he confided his feelings “personal vibrations”.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies have taken over the top 50. In 2022, before the start of the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, the first Western sanctions against Moscow and the turn towards its eastern and southern partners, only one Chinese company appeared in this ranking: Huawei.
Today, in addition to the home appliance and electronics manufacturer Hisense and the construction holding CRCC, this list is dominated by car manufacturers. With the leader, the first among these fifty foreign companies, Chery. Its turnover in Russia quadrupled in 2023 to reach 590 billion rubles (more than 5.8 billion euros) thanks to the sale of some 220,000 cars on the Russian market.
Mirage gas pipeline
“The Chinese are coming to town!”This is an increasingly popular joke among drivers on the streets of Moscow and in other major cities. For private individuals, ride-sharing and taxi networks such as Chery, Haval and Geely have largely replaced the Western brands. They have closed their factories, but Renault, Chevrolet, Volkswagen, Nissan, Kia and Hyundai are still omnipresent in the midst of the traffic jams.
In total, trade between Russia and China will reach a record $240 billion in 2023. With a flagship but highly hypothetical project: Siberian Force 2, this mirage gas pipeline that is to supply the powerful Chinese neighbour with some 50 billion cubic metres of Russian gas initially planned for Europe. This project reflects the unbalanced economic partnership between the two “friends”.
While in a year of conflict in Ukraine Moscow has become more dependent on Beijing, on its “pro-Russian neutrality” and on its markets to offset European embargoes, half of Russian exports of oil and petroleum products in 2023 were sent to China. And the entire Russian economy has reoriented itself towards the powerful eastern neighbor, at the risk of finding itself in a position of dependence and weakness.
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