Russian and French Economies

Russia is the biggest country in the world and is ranked 7th for its population with 143 million of inhabitants. The country is today one of the 10th most important economy in the world. In fact, Russia is situated at the 14th world rank concerning its total GDP for 2005 with approximately 763 000 million $, and at the 10th world rank concerning its PPP GDP for 2005 with 1 560 000 million $. After the crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's economy slowly began its recovery, until the financial crisis broke this positive trend in 1998. Russia revived from the financial crisis quite quickly with industry-led growth aided by the depreciated rouble. Then, since the beginning of 1999 the country's economy has experienced a positive trend, which naturally has reflected to its GDP. In fact, the performance of the Russian economy since 1998 has been impressive. Between 1998 and 2006, Russian GDP expanded by an estimated 57.6%, while real incomes of the population grew by 65%.
France’s surface is 25 times smaller than Russia and the country is almost 2.5 times less populated as Russia. According to its GDP for 2005, France is ranked 6th (with 2 110 000 million $) and 7th in the world concerning its PPP GDP (1 830 000 million $). The chart below represents the growth of the GDP in France, in red in volume and in green in value. We can observe than the evolution is negative since 1979.

[...] In fact, France is the most visited country in the world and tourisms represents of the French GDP. Then, Euro next is the first European stock exchange market, arisen in 2000 from the fusion of the stock exchanges markets of Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris. In 2006, Euro next announced its wish to get closer with the stock exchange of New York (NYSE) to create the vastest stock exchange to the world. Then, France is ranked at the first place in the European Union according to its agricultural production. [...]

[...] Presently, this potential is being realized only to a very small extend, but in future, as the Russian economy is more and more integrated into the international transport network, the role of Russian as a major transit transportation country should grow immensely. Especially favourable are two important transit routes through the Russian territory: from Europe to Asian and Pacific countries and from Europe to Southern and Central Asia. Within the period of 1995-2002, the largest capital investment was addressed to pipeline and railway transportation, as well as to construction and maintenance of automobile roads. [...]

[...] But there is a decline of the rate of activity of French people, resulting from several factors: the late entry of the young people to the active life (22 and a half years on average), the decrease of the actual age of the pension (57 years), the elongation of the life expectancy and the reduction of the duration of the work. The unemployment rate reached in 2005 and the unemployment namely of young people is still an important problem in France. [...]