Carnegie Moscow Center
While the obsession with global rebalancing stokes currency and protectionist tensions, it diverts attention from what is really needed—reforms at home.
Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, is vigorously promoting the development of new outlets for oil exports, an initiative that will have considerable policy and economic implications for Eastern and Central Europe and even the United States.
Consumption of natural gas is growing rapidly and now accounts for nearly one-quarter of the world’s energy supply. While natural gas is relatively clean compared to crude oil and coal, its ability to assume a greater role in meeting the world’s growing energy demands will depend largely on price.
While Russia’s short-term economy will largely depend on oil prices and the country’s demographic challenges, its medium-to-long-term outlook will be influenced by the lessons that leaders take from the crisis, which will affect Russia’s economic structure and policies for many years to come.
The Euro crisis, which strikes at the heart of the world’s largest trading block, no longer threatens just Europe. Economies around the globe are already being affected, and the worldwide recovery is at risk.
The Carnegie Moscow Center works to facilitate Andrew Carnegie’s belief that the world could be made a better place through the spread of knowledge and international cooperation. This year, the Center celebrates its 15th anniversary.
The hydrocarbon industries of the former Soviet Union are undergoing innovative development. In Russia, conditions both enable and inhibit the construction of a new economy focused on incentives for innovation.
Until the United States, China, and the EU reach consensus about the roots of the global economic crisis and coordinate recovery policy, the world economy is likely to get worse before it gets better.
Russia's foreign policy response to the economic crisis has been to marginalize the United States, move closer to Europe, and consolidate its control over the former Soviet space.