Foreign Technology Transfer: An Assessment of Russia’s Economic Dependence on High-Tech Imports

Abstract

T he article examines Russia's dependence on hightech imported goods. We improve the OECD hightechnology product classification by increasing the level of disaggregation, accounting for new goods, ensuring comparability over time, and differentiating goods by technological level on quite high levels of disaggregation. We describe the major trends in the world market for high-tech goods and identify the leading countries in each sector (most frequently, China, Germany, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, and Singapore) primarily by calculating net exports of high-tech goods in these sectors. We also assess Russian competitive positions in the global market for high-tech goods by sectors, applying the newly developed competitiveness index, and measure Russian dependence on high-tech goods imported from countries that recently imposed sanctions against Russia. We show that Russia's economy is highly dependent on imports of pharmaceutical goods and medical equipment, machinery and equipment (except nuclear reactors, fuel elements, engines and turbines), and electrical equipment. The sectors with most imports originating from 'sanctionimposing' countries are aircraft, medical and optical equipment, engines and turbines, and pharmaceutical goods. Computers and electronic equipment are at the opposite pole: in these sectors, China is the world leader and the key partner for Russia.

Science and Innovation Policy of the Russian Government: A Variety of Instruments with Uncertain Outcomes?

“…Th e volume of exports is modest -US$1.65 billion versus US$45.6 billion in UK or US$71.4 billion in Germany (HSE, 2017b). Th e country is least dependent on the import of nuclear technologies (in this area export is higher than import), and most dependent on the import of medical equipment (imports from countries that introduced sanctions is 92%), pharmaceuticals (over 90%), machinery and equipment (60%) (Gnidchenko et al, 2016). Th e technological dependence is also confi rmed by patent statistics.…”

Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground

“…121 Gnidchenko et al, 2016. 42.1 years (Figure 3.5). The median age is expected to rise steadily to 45.9 in 2035, and then to peak at 46.6 in 2039 (42.3 for men and 50.0 for women).…”

Value generation from industry-science linkages in light of targeted open innovation

“…Overall, four main levels of value creation from STI can be featured (Figure 1): For achieving impact from STI measures are taken at the different levels (OECD, 2002(OECD, , 2003Meissner and Zaichenko, 2012). National approaches include but are not limited to widespread investment initiatives in the STI infrastructure and equally widespread the development and implementation of numerous diverse policy measures aimed at connecting STI to industrial innovation for a sustainable economic growth (Carayannis and Grigoroudis, 2016;Cervantes and Meissner, 2014;Gnidchenko et al, 2016). Among these, often, measures for developing or maintaining centers of excellence and defining and supporting priority field funding are the most common (Gibson and Butler, 2013).…”