INDIA-RUSSIA TRADE RELATIONS ARE NOW ROBUST; EXPECTED TO CONTINUE IN 2023

A new S&P Global Market Intelligence report released on Tuesday predicts that India will continue to be a significant trading partner of Russia in 2023. This is true despite the fact that the situation in Ukraine has caused major bilateral trade volatility between Russia and almost all other markets.

The Big Picture from S&P Global Market Intelligence, t he most recent "Global Trade Outlook" report is part of the 2023 Outlook Report Series.

“The trade value of total imports from Russia has increased in recent months, primarily due to rising oil, gas, and coal prices, as well as spikes in Russian imports by several countries. This group is led by India, which noted a greater than 100 percent year-over-year increase in Russian import trade values each month after the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in February 2022,” said Agnieszka Maciejewska, Economics Manager at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

S&P Global Market Intelligence is a division of S&P Global. S&P Global is the premier source of credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics, and workflow solutions for the global capital, commodities, and automotive industries.

In addition to the positive outlook for containerized trade in 2023 despite a meagre 0.7% year-over-year (y/y) growth in 2022, which was driven by the anticipated slowdown in the second half, the analysis focused on the anticipated changes in trade as a result of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The new IMO greenhouse gas reduction policies that will take effect in 2023 were also highlighted.

Other significant highlights of the report include:

Due to the enormous growth in Russian imports, India is expected to have an increase in trade in 2023. Its predicted trade volume will increase by 3.8% y/y and 7.3% y/y, respectively, while its projected trade value will increase by 3.5% y/y in exports and 1.3% y/y in imports.

Mainland China is predicted to overtake Turkey, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as Russia's biggest importers in 2023.

However, given China's current economic slump, the situation is now much more uncertain. The importance of Western commercial partners in Russia's trade volume will decline. This tendency will be even more apparent if Russia restricts gas shipments to Europe in the winter of 2022–2023.

S&P Global Market Intelligence's Global Trade Analytics Suite predicts that containerized trade will grow by 3.2% y/y in 2023 after increasing by 0.7% y/y in 2022.

Since containers make up more than 50% of mainland China's exports, the economic hardships of the nation should have a considerable long-term effect on this kind of cargo. It seems unlikely that current situation will alter anytime soon.

Beginning on January 1, 2023, the marine sector, which depends largely on fossil fuels, will have to abide by new IMO short-term greenhouse gas reduction standards.

As a result, it is projected that maritime logistics costs will generally increase more quickly, and that there will likely be a minor slowdown in global trade and economic growth.