A central marketplace is a common feature of urban areas in Russia. Outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, small open markets and kiosks are the primary retail establishments. Nationwide distribution channels are still largely undefined...

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Russia's tax system has historically been confusing, inefficient, unwieldy, and overbearing. Businesses and individuals routinely fail to pay their taxes on time, if at all. The government's need for money to pay pensions and salaries fueled a proliferation of taxes, including a tax on people crossing Russia's borders, additional levies on freight, new transit fees, and a tax on yields from government securities. In 1996, 26 tax collectors were killed, six were kidnapped, and 41 had their homes burned down. In the first half of 1997, the government only collected 57% of its targeted tax revenues...

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In 2005, Russia's labor force was estimated at 74.22 million. As of 2004, it was estimated that agriculture accounted for 10.3% of the country's workforce, with 68.3% in the services sector, and 21.4% in industry. Although Russia's unemployment rate in 2005 was estimated at 7.6%, a considerable number of workers were underemployed...

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In September 1991, a foreign investment law promoting the transfer of capital, technology, and know-how went into effect. Nonresidents may acquire partial shareholdings or form wholly owned subsidiaries in Russia. Foreign firms may obtain licenses to exploit natural resources. Foreign investors can be exempted from import duties and export taxes, and there is limited relief from profits tax, varying by sector and region. However, foreign investors remain concerned with the overall business climate in Russia. Vague business laws, an incoherent tax system, crime and corruption in commercial transactions, and a weak commitment to reform continue to erode investor confidence...

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In 1993, a total of 1,524 Russian companies were licensed to sell insurance and another 750 companies had applied for licenses. However, fewer than 2% of the operating firms had assets over r100 million ($80,000), and premium volume for the first nine months of 1993 amounted to only 1.3% of the GDP (as compared with volume of 2.9% for the former Soviet Union in 1990)...

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Major manufacturing industries include crude steel, cars and trucks, aircraft, machine equipment, chemicals (including fertilizers), plastics, cement and other building materials, medical and scientific instruments, textiles, handicrafts, paper, television sets, appliances, and foodstuffs...

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The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that in 2005 the Russian Federation's gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at $1.5 trillion. The CIA defines GDP as the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year and computed on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP) rather than value as measured on the basis of the rate of exchange based on current dollars. The per capita GDP was estimated at $10,700. The annual growth rate of GDP was estimated at 5.9%. The average inflation rate in 2005 was 12.9%. It was estimated that agriculture accounted for 5% of GDP, industry 35%, and services 60%...

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Since the breakup of the COMECON and the Soviet Union, trade disruptions and friction between Russia and the governments of the former Soviet republics had led to an enormous expansion of the fiscal deficit. The deficit was financed largely through sales of domestic government securities and borrowing from international financial institutions...

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Russia's economy, $1.5 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms (as of 2005), is the largest within the former Soviet bloc. It was undergoing a painful transformation from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented one with limited public ownership. Per capita income in 2005 was only $5,165 in nominal terms, although $10,758 in PPP terms. By 2004, services comprised the largest sector of the economy (61.2%), while industrial production accounted for 33.9% of GDP. The manufacturing centers around Moscow and St. Petersburg are the most important, as they were for the entire former USSR. Russia has rich energy and mineral resources, including large deposits of iron ore, coal, phosphates, and nonferrous metals, as well as one-fifth of the world's gold deposits and substantial oil and gas reserves. There are also vast forest resources. Agricultural production accounted for 4.9% of GDP in 2004. Although the share of agriculture in total output fell from 14% in 1991 to 4.9% in 2004, the collapse has led to underemployment rather than unemployment among rural workers, and therefore agriculture still accounted for more than 12% of official employment in 2002. There is an acute excess demand for goods, especially consumer goods...

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In 1991, Russia's parliament enacted legislation aimed at fully privatizing the commercial and service sector by 1994 and placing about half the medium and large companies in private hands by 1995. By the end of 1992, about 6,000 firms had applied to become joint-stock companies, and 1,560 had completed the process; almost one-third of Russia's approximately 250,000 small businesses had been privatized. Housing privatization began late in 1992, and over 2.6 million apartments--about 8% of the total--had been privatized by the end of 1993. In 1996, the government claimed that the nonstate sector produced approximately 70% of gross domestic product (GDP), up from 62% in 1995. Russia's Communist-dominated parliament, however, was quick to criticize the government's privatization efforts which they thought were responsible for the economic decline. In March 1997, over two million people took part in a national strike protesting the economic hardships of privatization and over 100,000 attended rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The government, however, was committed to privatization and largely ignored the parliament and the protests...

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