Russia sold 18,194 new heavy trucks in the first half of 2026, down 17.3% year on year, according to Avtostat. KAMAZ expanded sales by 8.8% and Ural by 3.4%, while Chinese brands Sitrak and FAW fell 61.2% and 23.4%. June figures point to stabilization.
Russia's market for new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles rose 26.9% year on year in June 2026 to 122,731 units, according to Finmarket. Weekly passenger car sales topped 30,914 units in early July, while locally assembled Chinese models and domestic brands led volume growth.
Russian petrochemical group Sibur says it has replaced 97% of imported synthetic rubber with domestic production. With demand from Russia's tire industry limited, the company is directing a larger share of its output to export markets.
Russia's output of five base polymers reached 8.03 million tonnes in 2025, up 1% on the year. Three new plants — Irkutsk, Amur and the Baltic complex — could add 5-6 million tonnes of capacity by 2030, even as domestic consumption fell 6.7% to 6.69 million tonnes.
Retail sales of desktop PCs in Russia dropped 25-30% in 2025 in both units and revenue as rising memory chip prices lifted finished-system costs, according to FINMARKET.RU and Izvestia. As buyers delay upgrades, Avito reports a sharp rise in secondary-market sales of RAM, SSDs and hard drives.
Iron ore prices are sliding as Guinea's Simandou project increases exports, according to MSN. The West African deposit is adding new seaborne supply and challenging the long-standing dominance of Australia and Brazil.
Over the past decade Brazil has displaced the European Union as the leading live cattle exporter to North Africa and the Middle East, driven by far more competitive prices. EU shipments to third countries fell to 500,000 head in 2025 as Australia also retreated from the market.
Côte d'Ivoire, the world's top cocoa producer, cut its farmgate price by nearly 60% to 1,200 F CFA per kilogram for the 2025-2026 mid-crop. Jeune Afrique links the collapse in producer prices to a growing clandestine trade in beans. Abidjan blames falling world prices and unsold stocks.
IDC's updated analysis suggests the global PC market could contract by up to 9% in 2026, far worse than an earlier 2.5% estimate. The main driver is an intensifying memory shortage that is inflating component prices and constraining supply, while demand for AI PCs has fallen short of expectations.
A daily trade-policy roundup: a Prisoners Defenders report says Cuba forces 60,000 inmates to produce charcoal sold mainly to Spain at a 99.96% state margin, while Dutch exports to the U.S. fell 4.7% in the first ten months of 2025. Argentina plans to cut industrial export taxes, and El Salvador and Ivory Coast are also repositioning their trade and carbon-market policies.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has authorised mining companies to resume cobalt exports through a December 2 interministerial circular, ending the most restrictive phase of a policy that began with a full ban in February 2025. Kinshasa is pairing quotas with plans to build strategic stocks in a bid to take pricing power over the battery metal away from China.
Colombia will lift import duties on Ecuadorian goods to 100% after Quito raised its own tariffs on Colombian imports to the same level from May 1. Bogota says the measures breach the 1969 Cartagena Agreement and has begun legal action, deepening a dispute rooted in drug-trafficking and border security tensions.
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