Most numbers here are from Wisped or the CIA World Fastback, with a little Monasteries thrown in. GAP: 8th the world 2009, 1. 75 trillion Population: 9th in the world, 142 million Military expenditures: 5th in the world, $50 billion The Russian Federation Just finished a spectacular decade, averaging 7% annual growth since 1998. But at the end of that spectacular decade, their average income is $640 per head, their life expectancy is 66, and they only average 14 years of schooling. They really needed to make better use of the Golden Decade. Russia is extremely dependent on exporting natural resources, especially natural gas ND oil.
The price of those are falling. So is their population–it’s declined 5% since 1993 and although it is slowing it shows no sign of reversing. Alcoholism, drug addiction and AIDS are taking a heavy toll on Russia. Inflation is high, at 12%, and unemployment looks to increase from its current 6%. They’ve already blown through a good chunk of the petrol-dollars they had put aside, and the current economic crisis is not going to be kind to Russia. Seems pretty clear that Vladimir Putting is very much running the show, with President Maddened along for the ride. This suits the Russians Just fine–but it shouldn’t.
A decade of rising oil prices made Putting look a lot better than he really is. Their levers of power are the energy they supply to much of the EX. and their stockpile of nuclear weapons (They are 5th in military spending, with $ban annually, less than 10% of the U. S. ). On the perceived corruption index, they rank #129, between Niger and Sierra Leone. On business efficiency, they are ranked 45th out of a total of 51 countries, and sit between Italy and Romania. Their environment’s a bit of a mess, with a lot of leftover waste from the Cold War, he oligarchic exploitation of resources, and some stuff left over from WWW.
As Monasteries lists them, “air pollution from heavy industry, emissions of coal-fired electric plants, and transportation in major cities; industrial, municipal, and Pestle Summary Russia By creativeness agricultural pollution to inland waterways and seacoasts; deterioration; soil erosion; soil contamination from improper application of agricultural chemicals; scattered areas of sometimes intense radioactive contamination; groundwater contamination from toxic waste; urban solid waste management; abandoned stocks of obsolete suicides”.
They can survive this because the country’s so big. As for technology, they can’t run their oil companies without Western help–but they’re trying. They export nuclear technology and have good competence there. But Russia only has one university in the top 100, so long term prospects for entrepreneurial excellence are dim. I hate to be so bleak–maybe when we look in greater depth we’ll see reason for hope for this country–they certainly have shown themselves to be resilient, if nothing else. *sources from http://newsman. Typed. Co. UK/pestle/2009/03/pestle-summary- Russia. HTML
