Abstract
It is well known that Russia's ongoing transition process in the past decade has shown some singularities or peculiarities. Favorable developments in 1999-2001 have enabled the Russian government to succeed in reducing markedly non-monetary transactions and to generate budgetary surpluses. However, such phenomena as the substantial "hollowing-out of industrial production" and the "enlargement of the trade sector" can still be observed in the domestic economy. In a period of growing economic globalization, Russia's integration into international capital markets can be still characterized by two unfavorable factors: the relatively minor inflow of foreign direct investment and enormous capital flight. One of the key sectors linking the peculiarities of the domestic market with those of international markets is that of trade (commerce), which currently plays an important role in Russia's transformation to a service economy. This paper enunciates my attempts to clarify these peculiarities of Russia's marketization process by analyzing Russia's trade-margin trends based on updated trade-margin matrix data of the input-output system.
