Republic of Mordovia
The Republic of Mordovia – a constituent entity of the Russian Federation – is located in the centre of European Russia and forms part of the Volga Federal District. The area of the republic is 26,100 sq km, pop. 833,300. Capital: Saransk.
The republic belongs to regions with an industrial and agrarian economic specialisation. Industry plays the leading role in the republic’s economy; its share in the Gross Regional Product (GRP) is 25.9%. Machine building (36.3% of the industrial output), the food industry (23.8%) and building materials (13.3%) constitute Mordovia’s basic sectors.
In 2010, the republic’s GRP increased by 4% compared with the previous year to total 103.5 billion roubles. In the period from 2001-2010, investments in fixed assets in terms of the GRP rose from 24% to 37%, while the volume of production in the republic’s industrial sector increased threefold. In 2010, the industrial production index accounted for 123.7% of the 2009 level (108.2% for Russia as a whole), including 126.3% in the processing industry (Russia’s average index is 111.8%).
The agro-industrial complex is the second largest sector in the republic’s economy (17.4% of the GRP in 2009). Mordovia meets almost all its food requirements itself. The republic is one of the top six regions in Russia in the output of meat, milk and eggs per capita, and is ranked 9th in the Volga Federal District and 31st in Russia for farm produce in 2010.
Agricultural land makes up 63.5% of the republic’s area, of which 65.5% is arable land. Due to the drought that hit European Russia in the summer of 2010, the region’s farm output totalled only 26.2 billion roubles, or 72.1% of the 2009 level. In January-March 2011, the gross agricultural output was 4.4 billion roubles (108.7% of the corresponding period of 2010).
As of January 1, 2011, the number of jobless people registered with employment agencies stood at 7,100, or 900 people (10.8%) less than during the corresponding period last year. The level of registered unemployment was 1.5%.
