Competitiveness Of Russia’s Military Equipment Trade: Stylized Facts And Empirical Analysis

For a long period of time the range of major military equipment suppliers was limited to the USA,Russia and EU states.However,during the rapid economic development new players appeared in the market-China,India,Brazil,South Korea,Israel.At the same time,traditional exporters aspire to consolidate their positions and expand the geography of supplies.These trends significantly increase competition in the market,forcing suppliers to resort to various measures to promote products and lobby their interests.Russia traditionally ranked second among major exporting states after the United States of America with market share of more than 20%.In recent years,however,country’s position in this market hasn’t increased,but given the extremely contradictory data about the executed contracts for future periods might even have significantly reduced.It is extremely important for Russia to maintain and consolidate its positions in the military market to strengthen trade and political partnerships and because the proceeds from military exports remain the main source of profit for most enterprises in the industry and ensure the workload of their production capacities weapons as well as.This paper attempts to examine factors influencing the initial allocation of export volume of military equipment with the focus on Russian trade,while glancing at military trade of other major exporters.Trade competitiveness of military equipment is influenced by a great variety of factors: from quality of goods and factories to state’s ability to lobby military-political interests inside and outside the country.This paper investigates macroeconomic and situational factors influence military export volumes based on top exporting countries and discovers that factors like military expenditure in GDP,trade openness,outward FDI,military affairs in politics,GDP and participation in Iraq and Syrian wars have a significant impact on military export figures of top military exporters.In addition,this research determines Russia’s competitiveness in the global market of military equipment and makes a few suggestions that might help Russia to secure its position in the military trade race with new countries gaining momentum.