And the winners are… the Chinese! In the latest ranking of Forbes Of the fifty largest foreign companies operating in Russia, eleven come from its powerful Asian neighbour, with which Vladimir Putin has promised to launch a “new era” collaboration. In a month, at the BRICS summit (bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and, since 1er January, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran), in Kazan, on the Volga, from October 22 to 24, the head of the Kremlin is expected to once again host his ” friend “ Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, for whom he has confided his feelings “personal vibrations”.
In the meantime, Chinese companies have taken control of the top 50. In 2022, before the start of the Kremlin's “special military operation” in Ukraine, the first Western sanctions against Moscow and the turn towards its partners in the east and south, only one Chinese company appeared in this ranking: Huawei.
Today, in addition to the manufacturer of household appliances and electronics Hisense or the construction holding CRCC, this list is now dominated by car manufacturers. With the leader, the first among these fifty foreign companies, Chery. Its turnover in Russia quadrupled in 2023 to reach 590 billion rubles (more than 5.8 billion euros) thanks to the sale of some 220,000 cars on the Russian market.
Mirage gas pipeline
“The Chinese are coming to town!”joke more and more drivers, in the streets of Moscow as in other major cities across the country. For individuals, carpooling or taxi networks, Chery but also Haval and Geely have largely replaced Western brands. These have closed their factories even if, in the middle of traffic jams, Renault, Chevrolet, Volkswagen, Nissan, Kia and Hyundai are still omnipresent.
In total, trade between Russia and China reached a record figure of 240 billion dollars in 2023. With a flagship but very hypothetical project: Force de Sibérie 2, this mirage gas pipeline which should supply the powerful Chinese neighbor with some 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas initially planned for Europe. This project reflects the unbalanced economic partnership between the two “friends”.
While Moscow has become more dependent on Beijing in a year of conflict in Ukraine, on its “pro-Russian neutrality” and on its markets to compensate for European embargoes, half of Russian oil and oil product exports in 2023 were shipped to China. And the entire Russian economy has reoriented itself towards its powerful eastern neighbor, at the risk of finding itself in a position of dependence and weakness.
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Source: Lemonde
