Oil and gas were the primary natural resources for the Soviet Union, and they remain so for the Russian Federation. Russia is very rich in natural resources, which gives them the benefit of being able to harvest these in their own country. As stated many times before, the demand for fuel is very high all around the world, so Russia makes a huge profit in harvesting and exporting these resources to other countries. Russia possesses rich reserves of iron ore, manganese, chromium, nickel, platinum, titanium, copper, tin, lead, tungsten, diamonds, phosphates, and gold, and the forests of Siberia contain an estimated one-fifth of the world's timber. All of these metals help Russia develop and build more factories, enabling them to have more jobs for the people and having more of the population be employed. The more people employed equals more paychecks, which leads to higher spending and a increase in GDP. Russia depends heavily on its natural resources, as it cannot turn to agriculture for its economy. Because of all of these natural resources, Russia's GDP is able to rise in more ways than one.