In article the most important trends in foreign commodity trade of the European Union for 2004-2016 are analyzed. During this period, the European Union experienced the largest step-by-step expansion of its membership, when the number of member-countries of the integration bloc increased from 15 to 28. This process occurred against the backdrop of global crisis phenomena in the world economy system, such gradually growing characteristics of world economic evolution as its uncertainty, unpredictability, turbulence, and the periodic deteriorations of the conjuncture in some global commodity markets. A significant factor, complicating the development dynamics of a number of countries and regions of the world economy, was the introduction by the West and the repeated prolongation of anti-Russian sanctions. The above-mentioned shifts have actualized the need to study the dynamics and composite changes in the geographical and commodity structure of the European Union's foreign trade relations at the stage of its latest expansion and the process of narrowing that has begun. The conducted research showed the relative effectiveness of the European Union efforts to defend in the competitive environment its primacy in the sphere of international trade in goods.

The paper analyses contemporary trends in Japan’s foreign trade and
provides an estimation of Japan-Russia foreign trade cooperation. The study demonstrates that Japan, under the Strategy of the Global Outreach, is aiming to increase trade, economic, and investment relations with the developing countries, particularly in the Asia- Pacific region, by establishing bilateral free trade and economic  partnership agreements and promoting negotiations on multilateral  free trade agreements in the region. In addition, the paper shows  that Japan-Russia’s export sare primarily comprised of high value- added products that are traded in exchange for the naturalresource-
oriented imports. By calculating trade intensity and trade complementarity indices, the authors conclude that at present Japan and Russia can hardly be regarded as «ideal» trade partners, nevertheless, there exist some gradual changes in the foreign trade  structure. The authors corroborate the notion that the planned  political initiatives of 2016– 2017 regarding incremental  development of bilateral cooperation can boost further such  structural changes in the foreign trade cooperation between the two countries.

The article considers the policy of the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula on investing in foreign land resources. The dynamics of land grab policy, geographical distribution of investments and investor relations with recipient countries, interaction with international institutions, and problematic aspects of investments are disclosed. The leading role of the state in the investment process and the existence of a strategy for spreading the influence being realized in parallel with the land grab are shown. The problem of land grab is at the intersection of such problems as food security, geopolitical influence, international institutions and global governance, interaction of state elites, human rights, control over water resources.

The article reveals the concept of the new Silk road, which includes two strategic projects: «the Economic belt of the new Silk road» and  «Maritime silk road of XXI century». Special attention is paid to  trade and economic cooperation of the new Silk road, affecting the  interests of Russia, countries of Central Asia and Europe. The article  is also about the security of oil and gas transportation, which fully  coincides with the concept of the One Belt and One Road Initiative.  Giving a review of the ideas of economic cooperation between China  and Russia in the development of the One Belt and One Road  Initiative the article states the proposals for joint use of the possibilities of the Northern sea route. There are also given five  main areas of cooperation and construction of  the "One belt one road" in the article.

Chocolate, biscuits and confectioneries are rooted in cultural traditions, seasonal celebrations, family occasions and even everyday life in Europe and around the world. Confectionery industries contribute greatly to Europe’s economy. The dynamic development of the confectionery industry has a positive impact on many sectors of the European Union, increases employment, increases export potential, promotes growth in production in agriculture, transport and trade. Feature of the confectionery market in Europe is the highest percentage of consumption of chocolate, in relation to other types of confectionery products. The globally acknowledged savoir-faire and creativity of European manufacturers enable them to export their products all over the world. Around 60% of the production was exported: the top three destinations outside the European continent were the USA, Russia and Australia. The success of confectionery industry relies more and more on their exports. The article is devoted to research of the European Unions' confectionery market. The dynamics of the EU confectionery market is analyzed. The authors considered the features of the chocolate segment of the confectionery market in the EU countries and the current trends in the development of the confectionery market.

The assessment of the geographical focus, the volume and value of import to the Russian Federation fishery products position 0303 HS in the conditions of embargo. For the evaluation we used the data of foreign trade statistics of the customs service of Russia. By the end of 2016, the imports of fishery products decreased relative to 2013, substantially in a weight ratio of 47% in monetary terms by 40%. The geographical orientation of deliveries has changed. If in 2013, the main suppliers were the EU, Canada, USA in 2016 has significantly increased its sales in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Due to the embargo, domestic producers in the near future can supply to the domestic market up to an additional 250 thousand tons of fish products.

The article considers the development of natural gas trade in European hubs. Author compares the trade monitoring indicators using two methods: five key Elements and three Main Indicators. These methods allow to obtain consistent data on the progressive changes in the process of the European gas market liberalization, remaining different-speed nature of integration and fragmentation of individual markets influenced by a number infrastructure, political, cultural and behavioral factors. The practical value of these studies for making investment and political decisions of Gazprom is revealed.

The article investigates the process of establishing a corporate strategy for IKEA in all stages of development, the company studied the basics of its formation: business model and its competitive advantages, mission and corporate values, as well as the concept of the IKEA store. Central to the article is a consideration of the basic characteristics of a modern procurement strategy of the company, including the transfer of production to countries with lower costs, a reduction in the number of suppliers, the localization of production in the regional offices and the launch of own production, as well as the transition from a functional to a process-oriented supply chain management. Special importance is given to the analysis of the main directions, phases and challenges of foreign expansion of the company, as well as the benefits of the strategy of development of existing markets. The results of this study allow a comprehensive assessment of corporate strategy of IKEA, as well as provide the ability to use its advanced experience of domestic trading companies.

The article analyzes features of the Big Data used in e-commerce. The advantages of using Big Data in e-commerce in comparison with traditional commerce are revealed. Based on the study, the author proposes to build e-commerce platform era of Big Data. The establishment of the e-commerce platform will help companies to expand business volume and profits, enhance overall competitiveness, it also has a very important role, it will be the future of e-commerce development.

The practice of court dispute examination of customs value adjustment decitions is still one of the most widespread and relevant for the Russian Federal Customs Service for the last years. The order of customs value control during the additional verification phase is  analyzed in the article. The practical example of revealing the  indication of the inaccuracy of customs value and making the  desicion of setting the additional verification phase of customs value  control is given in the article. The particulars of realizing of setting  the additional verification phase of customs value control are  established in the article. The law problems and practical problems  arising during the additional customs value control verification are  discovered in the research paper. Those problems are: impossibility  of full research of the transaction circumstances in case of setting  the additional verification phase of customs value control; inconsistency between the demands in the procedure of the  additional verification phase of customs value control and the  demands of the Deсision of the Supreme Court's Plenum; as well as  the long terms of getting the answers on international request  information. The guidelines for solving them are formulated in the research paper.

In article results of a research of the educational organizations of the Czech Republic from a position of identification of regularities of change of their organizational structures are considered. The hypothesis of authors is that in the course of the development the organizations consistently change the structure with consecutive on parallel (network) qualitatively changing, but at the same time at each new level of development keep the defining properties. The analysis was carried out according to the educational organizations of the Czech Republic. Such choice has been caused by similarity of processes of functioning of the educational organizations of the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation. Data for a research have been obtained from the database by Albertina Gold Edition of Bisnode Česká republika, a.s. For splitting an initial data set into groups the cluster analysis which is carried out in the IBM SPSS Statistics program was used. In general, the received results of the cluster analysis have confirmed the made hypothesis of regularity of development of the educational organizations. However, this research has to be considered only as the first step and more convincing proof of alternation of consecutive and parallel organizational structures demands also deeper studying of organizational structures of the concrete organizations.