The Influence of Trade Regulation for Russia on Used Cars Exports: The Case of Exports from Japan

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Abstract:

　Since Russo-Ukrainian War in February 2022, Western governments have imposed various trade regulations for Russia. The Japanese government, as a member of the Western countries, has also imposed trade regulations on Russia, including restrictions on automobile exports. Since these regulations do not distinguish between new and used vehicles, they have had a significant influence on the trend of used cars exports to Russia.
　The initial trends of this influence are discussed in Abe (2022), where a decrease in exports is expected after April 2022. On the other hand, Yutaka Asazuma, Katsunori Okamoto, Nur kamaliah Mustaffa, and Tomoko Fukuda (2022) discuss trends through June 2022, reporting a sharp increase in exports to Russia and decreasing in number of export ports. Okamoto (2023), through research of exporters, analyzes the background to the sharp increase in export and the causes of the limited number of ports where exports, and discusses about influence from the agglomeration of exporter and ship operators' policies.
　These studies have revealed the causes that led to the rapid increase in exports of used cars to Russia, as well as the causes of the decreasing export ports. However, trade regulations for Russia have continued to tighten since then, limiting the types of vehicles that can be exported, and the additional sanctions imposed by the United States on Russian financial institutions in November 2024 have also affected the means of payment. This study seeks to determine how such developments of trade regulations have affected the export trends of used cars from Japan to Russia, and what kind of responses by traders have been behind such developments.
　As for the research method, quantitative data will be obtained from Trade Statistics of Japan. On the other hand, qualitative data will be obtained through interviews with stevedores, ship operators, and exporters. The focus is on trade between Japan and Russia, but information on trade between Japan and Russia's neighboring countries is also taken into account.
　In August 2023, the Japanese government added trade regulations on cars exports to Russia. This ended a situation in which the number of used cars exported had been increasing rapidly. Initially, some thought that the export volume would halve, but it did not decline to that level. On the other hand, the depreciation of the ruble against yen has reduced the purchasing power of Russian customers. Therefore, I am considered that additional sanctions against financial institutions appear to be having a significant influence. And there is also the influence from taxes imposed by the Russian government for imported vehicles. The response of the exporters to this is attracting attention.

REFERENCES
･ABE Shin, “Fluctuations in the Number of Japanese Used Vehicles Exported: Focusing on Exports to Russia,” Bulletin of Automotive Recycling 103, pp. 44-55, 2022.
･Asazuma Yutaka, Okamoto Katsunori, Nur kamaliah Mustaffa, and FUKUDA Tomoko, “International Situation Changes and Automobile Reuse and Recycling,” Proceedings:48th Conference of Japan Association on the Environmental Studies, 2022
･OKAMOTO Katsunori, “Changes and Background of Used Car Export to Russia after the Invasion of Ukraine,” Proceedings:Spring Conference of The Association of Japanese Geographers, 2023