Major trends in Russian coal industry in the late 20th - early 21st centuries

The subject of the research paper is the main trends of the Russian coal industry development in the late 20th - early 21st centuries. The authors draw attention to the fact that at this time the underlying trend was the liberalization of economic activities. Despite attempts to reform the basic sectors of the economy, taken at the turn of 1992, in reality structural changes here became apparent only in the mid-1990s, when the Russian government began to implement a restructuring program. Its key task then transformed into the main trends of its development, among them are: optimization of mine and career fund with the differentiation of companies as the least profitable, unpromising and perspective; reduction of production costs; growth of labor productivity; employment and social protection of redundant workers; ensuring industrial safety and reduction of occupational injuries; increase in nominal and real wages of workers. The early 21st century clearly delineated two other important trends in the development of the coal industry of Russia - a change in the geography of coal mining and increase of the share of exports in the total volume of sales. The analysis of sources and literature leads to the following important conclusions. Firstly, the basic industry of the national economy managed to overcome the band of the 1990s crisis and in many ways to enter a par with the leading coal-producing countries of the world. Secondly, there was an imbalance between economic and social performance. Thirdly, the Russian coal industry became highly dependent on exports. Fourthly, the production activities of mining enterprises were one of the factors in improving the socio-economic stability in the eastern regions of the country. The final conclusion can be considered as following. In the course of reforming the coal industry of Russia, the high social costs of the 1990s were offset by the serious economic successes of the coal business of the 2000s. Meanwhile, not only the industry itself, but the well-being of its employees were dynamically dependent on external factors. After the economic crisis of 2008-2009, an important task of the fuel and energy policy of the state became to find opportunities to diversify the use of coal in the domestic market, as well as to substitute import. Thus, in the period under review, the coal industry went through a restructuring and faced the need to upgrade technology.

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