Foreign trade surplus from oil exports
Despite a sharp decline in Russian foreign trade, the customs authorities in Murmansk in the first nine months of the year collected 16 percent more than planned. That is first of all thanks to the increasing oil exports in the region.
In Russia general, the Customs Service has this year suffered severely from the financial crisis with a more than ten percent decrease in collected tariffs compared with 2008. As BarentsObserver reported, Russian foreign trade declined 45 percent in the period January-August this year.
In Murmansk the situation is slightly better, but still negative. According to the latest Barents Monitoring report – a quarterly social-economic report written by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat – foreign trade in the region in the first half of 2009 dropped 23,5 percent year-on-year.
Still, however, the Murmansk Customs is collecting more and more taxes from the foreign trade. According to MBnews.ru, the customs authorities in Murmansk Oblast in the first nine months of the year handled 29,9 million tons of foreign trade goods, and transferred 51 billion RUB of collected trade tariffs to the federal finance ministry. That is 16,4 percent more than planned, the news site reports.
It is first of all oil exports which give the positive results. The oil export terminals in the Kola Bay, among them the floating Belokamenka tanker, handles an increasing amount of oil. A major part of the oil stems from Lukoil’s Yuzhno-Khilchuyu field in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
The main foreign trade partner of Murmansk Oblast is the Netherland, which is also the primary transit recipient of the Russian Arctic oil. According to the customs figures, a total of 91,99 percent of the foreign trade in Murmansk is now exports.
