New findings covering the first ten months of 2022 show a sharp drop in the volume of plastics exported from European Union member countries to Russia. Across several plastic categories, EU shipments declined by margins ranging from 19 percent to as much as 77 percent. In parallel, Russia’s own plastics sector faced a noticeable contraction in domestic production during January through November, with overall output dipping by 6.4 percent, according to a study reported by Kommersant and conducted by the Higher School of Economics, or HSE.
The decline in imports and the slower Russian market result from a combination of global and regional factors. A key driver was the array of international sanctions and restrictions imposed by Western nations in response to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Analysts note that the adverse impact on the plastics sector proved stronger than that seen in many other manufacturing industries within Russia.
Specifics from the report indicate that in the first ten months of 2022 the EU reduced supplies of plastics to Russia by notable gaps across product types, with the overall Russian production level reducing by six and a half percent in the following eleven months. Among the most affected materials were polyamide, which fell about sixteen percent, polyurethane resin at roughly eleven percent, polyvinyl chloride also down by around eleven percent, and polypropylene with an eight percent decline. Exports of these same plastics to the European Union contracted by a broad range as well, from two to fifty-six percent depending on the material.
In a broader assessment, the HSE team in the Nizhny Novgorod branch and the university’s Department of Applied Economics quantified potential macroeconomic impacts. The study warned that the total annual damage to Russia could reach between eighteen and eighteen point four trillion rubles if import substitution measures are not implemented. Even more severely, the complete cessation of such imports could threaten the performance of sectors that collectively produce goods equivalent to about fourteen percent of the country’s 2021 gross domestic product. These projections underscore how tightly the plastics value chain is interwoven with the wider economy and how exposed it is to shifts in international trade policy and sanctions. The findings are attributed to the HSE and were published by Kommersant as part of ongoing economic research.