The timber industry in Russia under sanctions: Losses and opportunities

The article considers the prospects of the domestic timber industry in the con-text of sanctions restrictions. Based on the data on average annual trade flows for 2018—2020, the potential damage from trade restrictions is assessed. Particular attention is paid to the fifth package of EU sanctions, which contains the most severe restrictions on trade with Russia for a wide range of forest commodities. The potential loss of income for the Russian timber industry from the ban on exports to the EU is estimated at 3.5 billion dollars. The ban on imports from the EU countries may also be sensitive for the industry, but it should not be regarded as fatal. The possibilities of partial replacement of the deficit of products for a considerable list of goods are shown. At the same time, the violation of free trade in forest products because of sanctions becomes a new turn in the spiral of the global crisis, which began in the pandemic COVID-19. Consequently, the damage to countries imposing sanctions on Russia is also significant. The most affected will be the largest RF trading partners in Europe — Finland and Germany, as well as the Baltic States. A sharp increase in logging in the EU against the background of the energy crisis creates an additional opportunity for the Russian timber complex. The reciprocal nature of economic losses, as well as multiple examples of circumventing sanctions in other industries, suggest that the most likely scenario will be attempts to maintain trade relations while formally implementing the imposed restrictions. © 2023, Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. All rights reserved.

The timber industry in Russia under sanctions: Losses and opportunities

The article considers the prospects of the domestic timber industry in the context of sanctions restrictions. Based on the data on average annual trade flows for 2018-2020, the potential damage from trade restrictions is assessed. Particular attention is paid to the fifth package of EU sanctions, which contains the most severe restrictions on trade with Russia for a wide range of forest commodities. The potential loss of income for the Russian timber industry from the ban on exports to the EU is estimated at 3.5 billion dollars. The ban on imports from the EU countries may also be sensitive for the industry, but it should not be regarded as fatal. The possibilities of partial replacement of the deficit of products for a considerable list of goods are shown. At the same time, the violation of free trade in forest products because of sanctions becomes a new turn in the spiral of the global crisis, which began in the pandemic COVID-19. Consequently, the damage to countries imposing sanctions on Russia is also significant. The most affected will be the largest RF trading partners in Europe - Finland and Germany, as well as the Baltic States. A sharp increase in logging in the EU against the background of the energy crisis creates an additional opportunity for the Russian timber complex. The reciprocal nature of economic losses, as well as multiple examples of circumventing sanctions in other industries, suggest that the most likely scenario will be attempts to maintain trade relations while formally implementing the imposed restrictions.

Pathways to wheat self-sufficiency in Africa.

A growing urban population and dietary changes increased wheat import bills in Africa to 9% per year. Though wheat production in the continent has been increasing over the past decades, to varying degrees depending on regions, this has not been commensurate with the rapidly increasing demand for wheat. Analyses of wheat yield gaps show that there is ample opportunity to increase wheat production in Africa through improved genetics and agronomic practices. Doing so would reduce import dependency and increase wheat self-sufficiency at national level in many African countries. In view of the uncertainties revealed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather events, and world security issues, national policies in Africa should re-consider the value of self-sufficiency in production of staple food crops, specifically wheat. This is particularly so for areas where water-limited wheat yield gaps can be narrowed through intensification on existing cropland and judicious expansion of rainfed and irrigated wheat areas. Increasing the production of other sources of calories (and proteins) should also be considered to reduce dependency on wheat imports.

Circularity by stock in Sri Lanka: Economic necessity meets urban fabric renovation

Persistent fiscal and political mismanagement, together with the financial pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, have driven Sri Lanka into a social and economic crisis triggering a decrease in national foreign exchange reserves, an inability to purchase vital imports, and an unprecedented rise in internal inflation rates. Within the correspondingly distressed construction sector, the idea of ‘design circularity' gains natural impetus beyond eco-system protection and responsible consumption views, as a critical strategy for responding to the material and fiscal scarcity of the country's by-now relatively closed economy. This is also in light of the fact that the post-independence history of industrial policy in the island has produced an urban landscape characterised by large underused and increasingly derelict building stock with a significant potential - and need - to be programmatically reorganised, technically recycled, and spatially and culturally re-designed. This paper moves from the proposition that, for ‘circularity' to be of use at the scale required, its design application must expand beyond conventional interpretations of material recycling, to acknowledge the overall building fabric as a critical, transformative resource available to be renewed or reborn, with varying degrees of reforms as called by the existing opportunities, underlying programmatic needs, and/or industrial constraints. In facilitating this function, architectural design has an important role to play, as particular sets of design strategies must be employed to handle the inevitable complexities between structure and form, material and content, and product and process, against a reflective understanding of local building logic, challenges and potential. To that end, professional design can help foster design approaches to resolve the technical intricacies of building fabric transformations, to strategise actions concerning work procurement and economic planning, and to provide the leading agency in setting up future-industry configurations. How this approach could inform and affect broad market notions of design circularity for Sri Lanka is evaluated through the review of three projects that focus on different programmatic transformations (residential-to-residential, residential-to-recreational, and commercial-to-recreational), are set within different geographical locales (city, periphery and in-between), and situated in and around Kandy, Sri Lanka's second largest city. The projects illustrate possible tactics for intervening on the existing fabric whilst considering the benefits of each and articulating the structural challenges for the practices involved. Copyright © 2023 Pathiraja and Tombesi.

RESETTING THE COURSE TO THE REVIVAL OF US INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY

The article examines the effectiveness of the strategy for restoring the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry in the United States. The main vulnerabilities of the “produce more in America” policy, the course to restore and reformat broken supply chains are considered using the example of key manufacturing industries. It is stated that the policy of rehabilitation of the manufacturing industry pursued by Biden is not a unique phenomenon for the United States. It was adhered to, to a greater or lesser extent, by the Obama and Trump administrations. However, only the Biden administration ordered to put it at the center of the ideology of the American revival. It is noted in this article that structural reforms to transform the industrial sector, implemented with unprecedentedly high financial support from the federal authorities, are directed at creating new jobs, forming new industrial clusters and innovation centers. The main efforts are aimed at targeted manufacturing industries: pharmaceuticals, strategic metals and minerals, electric vehicles, and semiconductors. The use of nationally produced goods, reshoring and the formation of supply chains within the United States are proclaimed as the main preconditions for building a truly strong economy. The concept of “real energy independence” promoted by Biden, relies on renewable energy sources. A new impetus to the “greening” of the energy sector may be given to compensate companies investing in renewable energy sources for the costs associated with the forced replacement of foreign suppliers with national ones. Meanwhile, in effect, the attitude of Washington towards hydrocarbon energy remains fairly loyal, at least at the time of high fuel prices. In the domestic economic agenda, the priorities of industrial policy are being revived, aimed at achieving sole technological leadership. However, Washington’s achievements cannot be interpreted solely as the successes of Biden’s economic policy. An equally significant role was played by the expansion of domestic demand against the background of overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vector of further development is determined by the slogan “surpass China and the rest of the world”. The White House is trying to persuade American companies to build new manufacturing facilities in the US in order to compete with Chinese suppliers. However, against the background of China’s obvious desire to develop its own research and production base, the opportunities for American diсtate are narrowing. Import substitution is a slow process – ​“money speaks louder than economic patriotism”. Only a small portion of the business returns to the country, because of global instability, China is considered by a large part of American investors as a fairly safe haven. Washington’s attempts to squeeze China out of the supply chains have only accelerated the implementation of Beijing’s programs aimed at achieving technological self-sufficiency and “de-Americanization”. In recent years, the epicenter of the policy of technological containment, pursued by the United States against China, has shifted towards Russia. Our country is accused by Washington of deliberately orchestrating disruptions in the supply chains in energy and agricultural commodities markets. The experience of anti-Chinese actions, accumulated in the competitive struggle against companies and state organizations, and coordinated with US allies, is being used now against Russian exporters. © 2022, World Economy and International Relations. All rights reserved.

Restructuring of Global Pharmaceutical Supply Chains after COVID-19

In recent decades, global pharmaceutical value chains have been actively devel-oping. Formed close cross-country and inter-sectoral ties contributed the Covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the functioning of global pharmaceutical chains. The effects of Covid-19 were overlapped previously emerging trends towards defragmentation of global pharmaceutical production. The aim of this paper is to identify possible firm strategies and models for restructuring pharmaceutical chains aimed at increasing their resilience in response to the damaging effects of Covid-19. We suppose that the resilience of the chain as a whole depends on the resilience of its separate links, and we show that the restructuring of pharmaceutical chains takes place in the form of the so-called “link” restructuring (restruc-turing of separate links of the chain). The paper highlights such models of “link” restructuring of sectoral cross-border chain as “zero” restructuring (stock creation);localization (includ-ing import substitution);migration (including reshoring and regionalization);globalization, which operate both in the short and long term periods. The multistage nature of global pharmaceutical chains, as well as the dynamic development of pharmaceutical outsourcing processes, have created favorable opportunities for “link” restructuring. At the same time, the features of restructuring were influenced by various factors, among which the degree of technology intensity of the pharmaceutical chain takes a key place. The paper proposes one of the possible classifications of pharmaceutical chains depending on the technologies used, where the following are distinguished: low-tech and medium-low-tech chains (pro-duction of essential pharmaceutical goods);medium-high-tech chains (production of ge-nerics);high-tech chains (production of patented drugs, production of biopharmaceuticals, production of medical equipment). The main conclusion the author comes is as follows: the higher the technology intensity of the pharmaceutical chain, the less defragmentation of pharmaceutical production will take place. Thus, in the production of high-tech biophar-maceutical goods, the most needed strategies will be regionalization and globalization of the chain links, while in the production of essential pharmaceutical goods, the strategy of localization and import substitution will be very successful (especially in the short term). This is due to the fact that as the technological effectiveness of the pharmaceutical chain increases, investment costs grow, which makes the efficiency of the chain’s functioning no less important than its resilience. © 2022, MGIMO Universty Press. All rights reserved.