Industrial development of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union in transition to the digital economy

Abstract

The rapid growth in high-tech production is a key development trend in the modern world industry. However, the situation in the developing countries, as well as in “transition economies” (former socialist countries) differs from the one in developed countries. The economy restructure during the transition “from plan to market” in the post-Soviet states after the collapse of the USSR did not improve the state of the industrial sector in these countries. On the contrary, some industries were lost, economic interregional and intersectoral relations were destroyed when they became sovereign countries. And their foreign trade was reoriented outside the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and later the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The purpose of the article is to assess the degree of readiness of the EEU and the CIS countries as a whole for the digital transformation of the economy on the basis of an analysis of their innovative and industrial development. The differentiation of the EEU countries by the level of industrial development, as well as the degree of lagging behind global trends in the transition to a post-industrial economy, is revealed. The analysis of the positions of the EEU countries in international rankings showed, that these countries continue to yield to the world leaders in terms of innovation activity and economic development. Today this gap may even widen. Only three countries still correspond to the main trends of world innovative development in the post-Soviet space: Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Others have difficulties in innovative and industrial development.