The rest is still owned by collectives or directly by the State. The large heavy industrial sector produces a full range of vehicles, metal goods, construction materials and machinery. Textiles and chemicals are other important industries. By contrast, light industry, and notably the production of consumer goods, is comparatively weak. The fastest-growing part of the economy throughout the 1990s has been the service sector, particularly banking, insurance and property which have developed from a very low base.
Services now account for about half of economic output.
Russia's main trading partners are the ex-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine along with Germany, the USA, Japan and Switzerland. The nature of the Russian Federation itself, a vast geographical area with a hugely diverse economy, has made the reform process far more difficult to implement than in smaller Eastern European countries where it has passed off with, by and large, reasonable success. Some of the problems are fundamental. Organised crime thrives in such an environment and Russian gangs are now among the world's most active. Foreign investors are deterred by such an environment and those who take the plunge frequently come away disillusioned.