Browsing by Author "Cotroux, Veronika"

The Master’s thesis provides a multiregional equilibrium analysis on the Russian sawmill market. The main objective of the thesis is to establish a partial equilibrium model on the Russian sawmill market and define the amount by which production, consumption, imports, exports, prices for roundwood and sawnwood may change over a period of time as a response to the following external factors: economic growth, changes in tariffs for roundwood after Russia’s accession to WTO, exchange rates, increased supply of the Russian sawlog, increased consumer preference for sawnwood in Russian and EU. The model includes 20 Russian regions and 5 export regions. The base year of the model is 2009. The partial equilibrium model has been constructed using GAMS software. After establishing an equilibrium model of supply and demand, 9 scenario variations have been run to answer the research questions. The results suggest that increased demand in CIS and China has a positive impact on the Russian sawnwood production. Increased supply of sawlogs in Russia could reduce prices for raw material on the local market and stimulate production of sawnwood in Russia. Changed consumer preference towards sawnwood could also stipulate the development of the sawmill sector, which highlights the importance of national programs to promote wood in construction. However, it was discovered that introduction of export tariffs for sawlogs does not stipulate production of sawnwood in Russia substantially, but reduces prices for sawnwood on the domestic market and decreases harvest of sawlogs. Increased dollar rate against ruble improves the profitability of the sawmill industry. However, devaluation of ruble may also lead to lower incomes of the Russian population in comparison to the EU and the US.