Russian Vaccine Exports Exceeded $1 Billion

Over the ten months of this year, Russian exports of “other vaccines for humans” (according to the classification code of the commodity nomenclature of foreign economic activity 3002200009) in value terms amounted to more than $1.2 billion (608.6 tons in physical terms), follows from the data of the Federal Customs Service (FCS). ) analyzed by RBC. Shipments of these vaccines jumped to $356 million in October, more than double the volume in September. The October result is a record in the entire history of Russia since the early 1990s. Previously, the export of vaccines for humans, even in annual terms, never exceeded $71 million (exports for 12 months of 2020).

According to this code, for the comparable period of 2020, Russia exported vaccines for only $46.5 million, for the same period of 2019 - $49.8 million. October deliveries of "other vaccines" became a record for the month. In physical terms, they amounted to 168.3 tons. For comparison, for the entire summer of 2021, 203.6 tons of “other vaccines” worth about $410 million were exported.

The FCS does not specify how export volumes are distributed by types under the main “vaccine code”. Until 2021, as experts explained earlier, vaccines against tick-borne encephalitis, combined vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, and hepatitis A were exported under the code 3002200009. In just three years - from 2018 to 2020 - Russia exported 468 .3 tons of similar medicines for $182.1 million.

But the sharp rise in this export category began in 2021, after the start of large-scale production of Sputnik V, the COVID vaccine. Already in the first half of 2021, Russia sold abroad almost twice as many vaccines in value terms than in the three previous years in total. Earlier, the Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed to RBC that the growth in exports of vaccines under this code is indeed associated mainly with the supply of anti-covid vaccines to international markets. However, the FCS was unable to clarify the volume of exports of COVID vaccines.