Outlook for world trade, economic growth, globalisation, and the resulting freight flows, especially between the European Union and Russia

This work examines the development of economic growth in the main economic agglomerations of the world; their current and future import and export volumes and the resulting new distribution of freight flows between the economic regions. A more detailed analysis is made for international trade of the EU and Russia. The study also focuses on the special role of Finland as a transit country for international transports of Russia. Due to globalisation, production will move to the growing economic areas of Asia. The simultaneous growth of population and production in the area will create an economic agglomeration, which will surpass the growth of Europe and the United States. This phenomenon will have a dramatic impact on the directions and volumes of freight flows of world trade. Trade and economic dependency between the EU and Russia will also grow and these areas will constitute a nearly integrated economic area. The forecasts are based on statistical data (The World Bank, OECD, Eurostat etc.) on current and past development of GNP, international trade, export shares etc. of the main economic agglomerations of the world. Based on this data economic growth scenarios and the distribution of freight flows between different countries have been made for the year 2030. In most cases the results for EU 15 and EU 25 are disaggregated and energy products treated separately from other products. The development of the Russian economy and the resulting effects on freight flows is based on three alternative political and economic scenarios. STAN model was used in freight flow assignments. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135582.