Dubious Russian foreign trade
As much as 70 percent of the Russian companies engaged in foreign trade exist only a very limited period of time.
Of the 200,000 Russian companies engaging in foreign trade, as many as 140,000 are “one-day companies”, Head of the Russian Customs Andrei Belyanikov says, newspaper Vedomosti reports.
After several years of steady decline, the number of fictitious companies operating partly outside the law increased strongly in 2009, figures from the Customs Service show. While the number decreased from 16,3 percent of the companies in 2007 to 8,6 in 2008, the number again increased to 12,7 percent in 2009.
The Russian state might itself be responsible for the situation. According to Marina Lyakisheva from the DLA Piper company, the number of companies engaging in illegal trade has increased in connection with the financial crisis, and the state is partly to blame because it has failed to adopt facilitating customs measures, Vedomosti writes.
