International Trade of the Eurasian Economic Union
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Pogledajte sažetak licence (Commons Deed) | Pogledajte Pravni tekst licence Imenovanje-Nekomercijalno-Dijeli pod istim uvjetima CC BY-NC-SA Mišević, P.: International trade of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) Ova licenca dopušta drugima da remiksiraju, mijenjaju i prerađuju Vaše djelo u Petar Mišević JEL: F18, O18,nekomercijalne R11, F15 svrhe, pod uvjetom da Vas navedu kao autora izvornog djela i University North Preliminary communication 42000 Varaždin, Croatia https://doi.org/10.51680/ev.34.1.14licenciraju svoja djela nastala na bazi Vašeg pod istim uvjetima. [email protected] Received: October 2, 2020 Accepted for publishing: OctoberPogledajte 31, 2020 sažetak licence (Commons Deed) | Pogledajte Pravni tekst licence This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Imenovanje-Nekomercijalno-Bez prerada CC BY-NC-ND INTERNATIONAL TRADE OF THE Ovo je najrestriktivnija od naših šest osnovnih licenci – dopušta drugima da EURASIAN ECONOMIC 5 od 6 26. 06. 2017. 12:24 UNION (EAEU) A Purpose: e main purpose of this research is to analyse the international trade of the EAEU member states. Methodology: e paper is based on the use of indicators such as the trade balance, intra-industry trade, import content of exports, trade openness, and the share of exports in GDP. Results: e results show openness to foreign trade and export orientation of the EAEU member states. Conclusion: e conclusion is that international trade, the rapid growth of export, and trade openness dif- fer significantly between the EAEU member states. Keywords: International trade, EAEU, global trade indicators 1. Introduction mies, and to promote stable development aimed at increasing the standard of living of the Member e Eurasian Economic Union (hereinafter: the States’ nations (EAEUNION, 2020). EAEU or the Union) is an international organisa- tion for regional economic integration. It has inter- e Eurasian Economic Union is a young interna- national legal personality and was established by the tional organisation of regional economic integra- Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union. e EAEU tion that was established by Belarus, Kazakhstan 1 provides for free movement of goods, services, cap- and Russia in 2015 (Eurasian Studies, 2020) . ital and labour, pursues coordinated, harmonised Today, the Union comprises five member states (Ar- and single policy in the sectors determined by the menia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia) Treaty and international agreements within the Un- that have committed to pursue the following ob- ion. e Member States of the Eurasian Economic jectives (Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union, Union are the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of 2014) 2: Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Re- public and the Russian Federation. e Union was 1 Eurasian Studies (2020), available at: http://eurasian-studies. created to comprehensively modernise and raise the org/archives/2955 competitiveness and cooperation of national econo- 2 Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union (2014) Vol. 34, No. 1 (2021), pp. 187-195 187 Mišević, P.: International trade of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) • to create conditions for the sustainable eco- number of key issues, from macroeconomic policy nomic development of the Member States to labour migration. to improve the living standards of their Finally, the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union population; came into force on January 1, 2015. Armenia joined • to seek to create a common market for the integration project on 2 January 2015, followed by the Kyrgyz Republic in May 2015. e core of this goods, services, capital and labour within the integration project is the creation of a single market Union; for goods, services, capital, and labour (Vinokurov • to ensure comprehensive modernisation, & Tsukarev, 2015). e EAEU has attracted strong cooperation and competitiveness of national criticism because many scholars argue that this Un- economies within the global economy. ion is a “Russia-dominated organisation” (Van der Togt, 2015, p. 52) and that it is “too weighted in fa- e three founding states make an “integration vour of Russia” (Popescu, 2014, p. 11). core” of Eurasian integration (Vinokurov, 2014), and In 2016, the Agreement on the Free Trade Area be- several multilateral treaties regulate their economic tween the EAEU and Vietnam entered into force. relations. e idea of regional economic integration e Agreement mainly pursues mutual abolition of in Eurasia dates back to 1994 when President Nur- trade duties. In December 2016, the Heads of States sultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan first introduced signed the Declaration on the Union's Digital Agen- the initiative to establish a Eurasian Union with a da, which laid the foundation for the development focus on the economy. of integration in the digital sphere. At the beginning of 2017, the White Paper was published, a mani- In 1995, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia signed the festo that determined the top priority areas of the Customs Union Treaty. e document envisaged Eurasian Economic Commission's work on identi- removing barriers to free cooperation between the fying and eliminating obstacles in the Union's in- countries' commercial enterprises, promoting free ternal market (EURASIAN COMMISSION, 2020)4. trade, and fair competition (Vinokurov & Tsukarev, 2015). Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed this Agree- On April 11, 2017, the Presidents of the Union ment in 1996. However, their commitments to lift States signed the Treaty on the Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union. In April 2017, plans non-tariff barriers and unify tariffs for members of for liberalisation of services entered into force, the Customs Union were not put into practice, since whereby another 20 service sectors were to join the the countries were deeply divided on economic and single market format before 2021, including highly political issues. dangerous construction works, tourism, assess- In 2000, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Rus- ment, mine surveying, and scientific research. sia and Tajikistan established the Eurasian Eco- In 2018, the Interim Agreement leading to the for- nomic Community (EurAsEC) to formalise the free mation of a free trade area was signed between the trade regime and establish a unified system of cus- Eurasian Economic Union and the Islamic Repub- toms regulation (Eurasian Studies, 2020). In 2007, lic of Iran during the Astana Economic Forum. e Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed the Treaty Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation be- on the Creation of the Common Customs Territory tween the EAEU and the People's Republic of China 3 and Establishment of the Customs Union (2020) . was also signed (EURASIAN COMMISSION, 2020). An action plan was adopted to provide for the free In terms of international trade of the EAEU, in movement of goods among the members and to fa- the period from January-June 2018, the prevailing cilitate trade with third countries. goods in the export commodity structure of the In 2009, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia set up the EAEU Member States to third countries included Customs Union (CU). As a result, a single customs mineral products (67.2% of the total export volume territory was created, border control was eliminat- of the EAEU Member States to third countries), ed, and a single customs tariff took effect. In 2012, metals and metal products (10.4%), and chemical the CU expanded and became the Single Economic industry products (5.7%). About 80% of these goods Space (SES). e three states agreed to coordinate a were sold by the Russian Federation at foreign mar- 3 World Intellectual Property Organization (2020), “Agreement 4 EURASIAN COMMISSION (2020), available at: http://www. on the Creation of Common Customs Territory and eurasiancommission.org/ru/Documents/2797_1_EEK_%D0 Establishing of Customs Union”, available at: http://www. %A6%D0%98%D0%A4%D0%A0_%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0 wipo.int/wipolex/en/other_treaties/text.jsp?file_id=330115 %B3%D0%BB__sait_rasv.pdf 188 Vol. 34, No. 1 (2021), pp. 187-195 Mišević, P.: International trade of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) kets. e largest share of imports was machinery, 2. Methodology equipment and vehicles (43.7% of total imports), chemical industry products (18.8%), and food prod- For the purpose of this paper, an analysis is con- ucts and agricultural stock (12.3%). More than 80% ducted of the relevant foreign trade indicators cal- culated based on the data from World Bank statisti- of such goods outside the EAEU were purchased by 5 the Russian Federation. cal database (2020) . e following indicators were separately calculated and analysed: intra-industry According to the International Crisis Group (ICG, trade, trade balance, export-import ratio, trade 2020), the initial establishment of the Customs openness and share of exports in GDP for the five Union coincided with an intra-regional trade in- EAEU member states for the period from 2014 to crease by 32.1 per cent in 2011 to some $62 billion, 2018. Methodological frameworks are adopted and by a further 7.5 per cent in 2012. Since then, from works by Kandžija et al. (2014), Bezić and a strong downward trend had been observed, fall- Galović (2014), Galović et al. (2017), Galović et al. ing by 5.5 per cent in 2013, 11 per cent in 2014, (2018), Mišević (2019). and 25.8 per cent in 2015. By the year 2015, trade among EAEU members was down to $45 billion. Trade is generally viewed as essential for a country's In the period from January-April 2016, trade was growth and, to some level, its economic develop- down by 18.4 per cent, year-on-year.