Russia's foreign trade surged 50.7 percent in January-September 2008 compared to 9M 2007, reaching $573bn, Russia's Federal Customs Service reported according to RBC. From that, trade with countries outside the CIS rose 51.5 percent to $487.5bn, while trade with the CIS reached $85.5bn (up 46.5 percent). Trade surplus widened 58.98 percent to $169bn, including a surplus of $142.4bn for countries outside the CIS (up $51.6bn), and $26.5bn for the CIS (up $11bn).
Russia's exports rose 52.5 percent to $371bn, including $315bn worth of exports to countries outside the CIS (up 52.7 percent) and $56bn to the CIS (up 51.6 percent). Fuel and energy resources accounted for 73 percent of total exports to non-CIS nations (up from 67.6 percent a year earlier), and for 42.6 percent of total exports to the CIS (up 6.2 percentage points). Total imports rose 47.6 percent to $202bn, including $172.5bn (up 49.4 percent) and $29.5bn (up 37.6 percent) from countries outside and within the CIS, respectively. The rise was mainly due to higher machinery and equipment imports, which accounted for 56.4 and 28.4 percent of imports from outside and within the CIS, respectively.
Russia's major trade partners outside the CIS were Germany (with $52.7bn in trade), the Netherlands ($50.3bn), China ($41.6bn) and Italy ($40.4bn).