Russia’s Agricultural Trade With China Up 30% In 2022
While much of the Russia-China trade talk during 2022 has been about China’s significantly increased purchases of Russian energy resources, bilateral trade has been increasing in other industry sectors too. One example is agriculture, where Russia and China increased trade in agricultural products in 11M 2022 to US$6 billion, which should amount to an annual trade increase of about US$6.5 billion.
That exceeds the 2021, the trade turnover between Russia and China in the agricultural sector exceeded US$5 billion and represents growth of 30%.
The Russian Agroexport Center estimates the potential supply of Russian agricultural products to China at US$6-10 billion per year. In 2021, exports amounted to US$3.6 billion compared with US$4.1 billion a year earlier and in 7M of this year – US$2.3 billion compared with $2.1 billion in the same period last year.
Fish and seafood have been the most in-demand product on the Chinese market. In 2021, Russia delivered nearly US$480 million in frozen fish to China compared to US$1.2 billion in 2020, with exports curtailed due to covid issues. However, in 7M of 2022, exports totaled $432.5 million and have been increasing since, meaning that exports for the entire year are likely to have reached or exceeded the 2020 volumes.
There is also growth in Russian supplies of grain crops, meat products and vegetable oils.
China is uniquely poised as an excellent agricultural trade partner for Russia. China possesses 25% of the global population, yet has just 5% of the world’s arable land. Russia meanwhile possesses 7.5% of the world’s arable land yet has just 1.87% of the global population. The Russian arable land use ratio is increasing – geopolitical analyses of climate change adaptation foresees large opportunities for Russian agriculture during the rest of the 21st century as Siberia’s arability increases, meaning that the Russia-China agricultural trade can be expected to continue its growth for the foreseeable future.
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