Foreign economic activity of the Urals’ Arctic zone (the YaNAO case): challenges and prospects

Abstract

The largest challenges faced by Russia’s economy are boosting of non-resource and non-energy exports, improvement of transport and logistic infrastructure, and development of northern territories. The article is aimed at identifying the issues and prospects for foreign economic activity
(FEA) of the Arctic region, with the increasing attention to its development and improvement of transport connectivity of Russia and Eurasia in general. FEA analysis is based on the case of the Urals’ Arctic zone – Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrug (YaNAO), by comparing the indicators for
the Ural federal district and Russia over 2002-2018: foreign trade changes in goods and services, including transport and tourism; foreign direct investment. Besides, prospects for the region’s potential in these FEA areas are given. Results and scientific importance highlight the peculiarities
of the Arctic zone’s (YaNAO) foreign economic activity revealing its mono-specialization in natural resources extraction and need for federal projects to deliver on its potential of developing non-resource and non-energy exports (including transport and tourist services, etc.). Practical signifi cance of the results consists in the possibility of their use by analyzing and predicting foreign economic development of the northern and Arctic territories.