Overcoming imbalances in the provision of natural resources for the development of the World Economy: maintaining a minor role of Russian TNCs

The article shows that although the threat of rapid depletion of mineral resources in the world is largely exaggerated, imbalances in their distribution and consumption are gradually increasing. On the one hand, globalization intensifies the competition of countries for resources, as the global development of recent decades shows. On the other hand, globalization mitigates imbalances through foreign trade and direct investment. The article examines the role of Russian investor companies in these processes. The research is based on corporate materials, official statistics and the most authoritative sources of industry information. The contribution of Russian oil and gas TNCs, companies specializing in the construction and operation of nuclear power plants and hydroelectric power plants, as well as leading investors in the field of non-ferrous metal industry was studied. A distinctive feature of Russian TNCs is the limited geography of their foreign business, especially in the countries of the global South. Usually we can see the preference of a narrow circle of countries which had long history of good political relations with Russia. At the same time, reliance on purely economic considerations is less pronounced than that of leading Western competitors. As a result, external shocks (whether political cataclysms in individual countries in the case of the oil and gas sector or sharp fluctuations in the international conjuncture in the case of non-ferrous metal industry) can greatly affect the scale of foreign activity of Russian TNCs. For the time being, it is more likely that we can still talk about the initial stages of internationalization of Russian business, which has little effect on the nature of global development with its investment activity. The article also shows that since in the future the scarcity of land and water resources will increase in the global economy, additional opportunities will open up for Russian companies to strengthen our country’s international positions. However, so far the activity of Russian TNCs is not observed there because it is limited mainly by the increase in grain exports to developing countries.

PECULIAR FEATURES OF NON-FERROUS METAL INDUSTRY AND METALWORKING IN PROTOTOWN CENTRES IN CENTRAL PREDURALYE

In her research M. G. Ivanova raised various questions concerning the Middle Age history of Udmurtia. One of them is the question of origins of prototown settlements which were craft, trade and political centres on the territory. The Idnakar settlement used to play the key role among the prototowns of the day. In her work a lot of attention is paid to craft activities characterization, among others non-ferrous metalworking. Very similar cultural and historical processes may be observed on the territory of Central Preduralye - its Udmurt and Perm areas. Today’s research shows that metal workers in Central Preduralye produced copper alloys, cast ingots and exported these as trade goods. Alongside furskins, metal as a strategic raw material was one of the most sought-after trade items. Local artisans made some impressive achievements in non-ferrous metalworking - metal casting, gold-work, and copper smithy. Non-ferrous metal industry and metalworking, traditional among the Finno-Ugrian population, was much less dependent on craft centres of large feudal states than thought previously. However, it was clearly under the influence of these centres. Local production of various everyday items and decorations using non-ferrous materials is confirmed by many traces of mass craft production in prototown centres, and in Idnakar in particular. It is brightly manifested by the large number of specialized workshops that have been found across the Perm Region in recent years. Today it is beyond any doubt that there were in Central Preduralye regional centres of copperware production - particularly of cauldrons - as well as a peculiar Bulgar-Kama gold-work school whose items have peculiar unique features. Thanks to large-scale research at key Middle-Age sites, our views changed dramatically on specific features of metalworking in Central Preduralye and the import ratio on these territories among the unearthed Middle-Age artefacts.

A Novel Intelligent Manufacturing Mode With Human-cyber-physical Collaboration and Fusion in the Non-Ferrous Metal Industry

The non-ferrous metal industry is one of the most important part in China’s process industry, and has an extremely important strategic position in national economy. However, in the smelting process of non-ferrous metal, there still exists many problems: 1) the production process of non-ferrous is long, the utilization rate of resource and energy is low; 2) the large amount of waste discharge in the production process has caused prominent environmental protection issue; 3) product homogeneity is serious and the added value is low. To solve these problems, we constructed a novel intelligent manufacturing mode with human-cyber-physical (HCP) collaboration and fusion from three aspects: 1) intelligent manufacturing system with HCP collaboration and fusion, 2) product service system based on ecosystem platform, and 3) sustainable business model, to realize the safe, efficient and green production for the non-ferrous metal smelting process. In the case study on the largest copper smelting enterprise in the world, the digital twin based manufacturing system collaborative platform architecture, product &service system framework, and sustainable business model canvas are built by the proposed intelligent manufacturing mode with HCP collaboration and fusion.