ERI FEB RAS

Introduction

The development of the Russian Far East is in the focus of attention of political, economic, academic, and business circles. It is connected with its geostrategic position, exceptional endowment with natural resources, peculiarity of transformation processes transpiring in its economy. The Sasakawa Peace Foundation lays special emphasis on the processes of transformation of a planned economy into the system of market relations, which results in its support for international research projects.

The first project supported by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and performed by the Economic Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences together with an expert group consisting of  Japanese researchers and experts, was carried out in 1991-1993. The result of this experiment was a book "The Russian Far East: an Economic Survey" (1993), which solved the problem of information deficit on the issues of the region's social and economic development at the beginning of market reforms, and filled a gap in information awareness of both foreign and Russian investors and businessmen.

This publication is a result of research executed within the framework of the second international project initiated by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in 2004 on the issues of cooperation between the Russian Far East and  countries in the Asia - Pacific region (APR).   

At the present time, the Russian Far East represents geostrategic interests of Russia in АPR, in which connection the issues of effective interaction between Russia and APR countries through international economic cooperation acquire primary importance.

For a long time Russia was building its relations with APR as its external partner instead of being its constituent part. Only entering the APEC, Russia has taken the first step towards Asian regionalization. Large-scale and dynamic development of economic cooperation between Russia and APR countries, NEA above all, can have decisive meaning in terms of enhancing geopolitical positions of the country in the Asia - Pacific region.

The key positions in Russia's integration into APR are held by the Russian Far East. It can be explained by a number of reasons. First, the Russian Far East plays an enormous part in safeguarding the state interests of the country in APR as a whole and East Asia in particular. Second, the Russian Far East region has natural opportunities and certain comparative advantages for carrying out and expanding economic cooperation due to such objective factors as:

• ¨ favorable geographic position;
• ¨ the region's provision with natural resources meeting the needs of a number of APR economies;
• ¨ dynamically growing markets and trade volumes of APR countries, primarily NEA;
• ¨ availability of the main transport and transit infrastructure.

The published materials present research results on the issues of economic and institutional reforms and changes, foreign economic relations, economic policy and integration processes, energy security, environmental management issues to achieve sustainable development of the Russian Far East and APR countries. The work on the project involved researchers from the key research centers of Russia, Japan, China, Mongolia, Republic of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia.