Russia in international rankings

International rankings allow comparing various indicators of different countries, to assess their level of development, resource endowment. Russia is represented in many international rankings that characterize its economic system, finances, level of IT development, education system, standards of living and other areas.

After the recession in 2020 associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, nominal GDP per capita in Russia in 2021 surpassed the pre-COVID level and stood at $12,173, according to the World Bank. GDP per capita at PPP in 2021 amounted to $32,803. However, despite the fact, that country’s economy began recovering after the pandemic peak, Russia lags far behind the world leaders in these indicators, ranking 84th and 52th, respectively (the World Bank data).

Furthermore, the economic situation, the level of entrepreneurship development, the openness of the economy are assessed by international organizations, private corporations in accordance with the indices they developed, for example: the World Bank's Doing Business index, the Economic Complexity index, the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness index. The Doing Business index examines the operating conditions of a company from the very moment of its inception, including finding a location, getting credit, paying taxes, and the business environment in general. The indicators are grouped into 12 sections. The leaders are New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. Russia ranks 28th with a score of 78.2. Moreover, over the past 10 years, Russia has done a great job and managed to rise by almost 100 places from 123rd to 28th place, which indicates an extremely positive trend in the development of the business environment and investment climate, including for doing business by foreign companies.

The Economic Complexity index takes as a basis the data on diversification of country’s export (the number of products it exports) and the ubiquity of its products (the number of countries importing its products). Over the past 20 years, Russia has dropped from 25th to 43rd place with an indicator of 0.50, that is, export diversification and the number of importers have decreased. In 2020, Japan, Switzerland and Taiwan entered the top three of the Economic Complexity index.

The Global Competitiveness index characterizes the competitiveness of countries. All the indicators are combined into 12 benchmarks: infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, level of education and technological development, and others. Russia ranks 43rd with an indicator of 66.7. According to this ranking, Singapore, the USA and Hong Kong are the most competitive regions in the world.

Not only economic indicators and law aspects are evaluated by international rankings, but the indicators directly connected with the population. Thus, the Human development index, developed by the United Nations Development Program, evaluates life expectancy, average duration of school education, standard of living. Russia ranks 52nd with an indicator of 0.824 and is included in the group of countries with a very high level of human development. Moreover, this indicator has been constantly growing over the past 20 years, except for the recession in 2009. Norway, Ireland and Switzerland are the countries with the highest Human Development index.

Nowadays, digitalization is one of the main trends; hence, the level of Internet penetration is also assessed and considered a significant indicator. There were 129.8 million Internet users in Russia in January 2022. Russia’s Internet penetration rate stood at 89.0 percent of the total population at the start of 2022. Kepios analysis indicates that the number Internet users in Russia increased by 5.8 million (+4.7 percent) between 2021 and 2022.

Russia is one of the world leaders in the production of key energy carriers, producing 10.5 million barrels of oil per day (2nd place in the world after the USA), 638.5 billion cubic meters of gas (2nd place in the world after the USA) and 386 million tons of coal per year (6th place). Russia is also one of the leaders in the production of metals: aluminum (3rd place), steel (5th place), iron (5th place), copper (7th place) and others. In 2020, Russia generated 1,805 terawatt-hours of electricity, taking the 4th position in the world ranking.

However, large-scale industrial production leads to environmental issues, including air pollution. According to the World Bank in 2019, CO2 emissions per capita in Russia amounted to 11.8 tons: the country took the 16th "anti-place".

In conclusion, Russia occupies leading positions in producing key energy carriers and metals and has high-quality human capital. Meanwhile the business climate is dynamically developing in the country, which is reflected in the main world rankings such as Doing Business by the World Bank.

Russia is an excellent country for business development of companies, including that of foreign ones. RAUIE has been helping foreign companies to develop business in Russia for more than 12 years, including registering companies or representative offices, providing legal and accounting support for business, interaction with authorities and PR promotion.

RAUIE helps both to find consumers or suppliers in Russia and to implement investment projects. You can apply for a free consultation through the feedback form on the website or by mail office@raspp.ru