Nizhniy Tagil Customs processed 17,800 cargo manifests in January-August 2008; some 190 legal entities dealt in foreign trade altogether, while the total cargo turnover amounted to 3.1 million tons, with 55.1% of goods shipped to or from the far abroad and 44.9% shipped to or from the CIS.

The external trade turnover in the area came to $3.1bn, which exceeded the figures for January-August 2007 by 33.7%. The export/import ratio came to 81%/19%.

80.7% of the total trade turnover involved the countries of the far abroad, while 19.3% of the total turnover had to do with the CIS. The latter rose by 49.2% compared to a year earlier and reached $607m, whereas the former increased by 30.5% against a year earlier and amounted to $2.5bn, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports.

The trade turnover involving the countries of the Commonwealth went up thank so more goods being exported to Kazakhstan and Ukraine and more goods being imported from Kazakhstan. As far as the countries of the far abroad are concerned, the turnover rose because of more goods being exported to the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, and the USA and more goods being imported from Austria, China, the Czech republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the USA.

In terms of goods exported, most of these are metals and metal-based products as well as chemical industry produce, timber, pulp, and mineral commodities. Among the goods imported are mineral commodities, machinery and labor-saving devices, metals and metal-based products, and chemical industry produce.