Once the dust settles on the global market earthquake, investors may well decide Russia is just too big to ignore regardless of how far its war in Georgia has damaged its economic and diplomatic relationships, says a Reuters report.
The specific political risks of doing business and investing in Russia will need be tested against the allure of a resource-rich economy with a fast growing middle class hungry for consumer goods.
The European Union’s economic relations with Moscow could also become a source of transatlantic friction, to judge by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s speech urging Europe to join Washington in standing up to “bullying” by Moscow.
The EU’s two-way trade with Russia, its biggest energy supplier, reached almost $350 billion last year, more than 10 times the volume of US - Russian trade at $26.7 billion in 2007.
That helps to explain why the EU-Russia relationship is one of economic interdependence, while Washington’s ties with Moscow remain based on geopolitics and security, and hence more prone to ideology than pragmatism, the news agency observed.