Russian Foreign Direct Investments as a Factor of Eurasian Integration

The article is based on statistics of monitoring of Russian FDI in the CIS and other Eurasian countries which is being conducted under the author’s leadership­ in the IMEMO-Institute since 2011 with the financial support of the Eurasian Development Bank. Real distribution of the Russian outward FDI stock in the CIS and other neighboring countries is shown. It includes data on FDI via offshores. Motives of Russian TNCs’ activities are explained. It is stressed that full-fledge corporate integration in the CIS does not exist. Special attention is paid to the competition between Russian firms and TNCs from the EU and China in their investment expansion in Ukraine and Central Asia. <p><p>JEL: F21, F23, F15.