But that is not what I am talking about. American multinationals established in Canada so that they could have access to the Canadian consumer market. Russia could sell resources to Europe and elsewhere, technical assistance to those lower down the VA chain, and through a combination of domestic investment in infrastructure and public goods attract a broad range of multinationals and domestic companies to service a growing domestic market. Chris seems to be indicating that this is what is partly going on. Resource rents are being to some extent ploughed back into domestic infrastructure.
I raised the Canadian model primarily as an example of middling affluency (and aspirations) built on a very weak indigenous industrial base. Given Russian development to date this seems plausible and Russia has similar resource profile to Canada with an albeit larger potential domestic market and proximity to an equally affluent and "unguarded" (to the US) export market. ____________________________________ Travis W Fast
>
> On May 11, 2007, at 2:58 PM, tfast wrote:
>
> > More seriously the question of Russian economic development might be
> > usefully posed in terms of whether or not Putin has in mind a
> > staples based
> > strategy fro economic development. The Canadian model would be more
> > instructive than any of the Asian, SEA NICs.
>
> Wouldn't that require moving Russia so that it had a 3000-mile
> unguarded border with the U.S.?
>
> Doug
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