Today's global economy is characterized by a rapidly forming of new institutional structure, infrastructure and competitive environments, a significant element of which is the growing importance of emerging economies and their increasing influence on the dynamics of global economic processes.
Of course, such processes require significant domestic and external investments, as well as strengthening of integration relationships and opportunities. Of great importance are the large emerging countries that are on the way to becoming new global leaders and whose success may contribute to the development of a wide range of relatively small countries (for the latter, entering the highly competitive markets of developed countries on their own is not easy).
It should be noted that the global economy requires permanent strengthening of international economic ties in general and investment relations in particular. It is well known that the emerging countries which managed to maintain their investment attractiveness and to avoid an investment collapse during the global crisis have achieved much better results in the post-crisis recovery (as compared to other countries): higher economic growth, stronger competitive positions, and broader integration options. Moreover, the leading emerging countries were able to strengthen their economies by merging their national investment flows with the global ones, and by taking full advantage of the value added by the business environments of their partner countries (mostly emerging ones) for their own networks.
Despite certain protectionist moods that have re-emerged in the crisis and post-crisis periods, we have gained a deeper understanding of the need for expansion of transnational production and infrastructure projects for further development, which also means a new level of modern integration processes.
The initiative of creation and implementation a transcontinental project — the New Silk Road — is justly regarded as one of the global integration models with the highest future potential. Indeed, this project may be able to update the system of international trade, investment flows, competitive environments, integration networks, etc.
This publication is dedicated to analytical research of the macroeconomic condition and development of post-soviet countries that can take an active part in implementing the mentioned initiative. However, the analytical report presented here should be considered only as the first stage in systematic research of the economic and institutional effects, benefits and risks for the countries.
