DIRECTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL ECONOMICS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Abstract

13 February 2019, Dmitry Medvedev, Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, approved the “Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the Period up to 2025”. This document is undoubtedly a significant milestone in the formation of the state regional policy. However, its practical significance caused reasonable doubts among experts. First of all, attention was drawn to the basic term of “spatial development”. How does it differ from the “regional development policy”, the principles main goals and mechanisms of which have not yet defined? May the substitution of the concepts be a way of avoiding this fundamentally important task? They caused questions and uncertainty of the role of regions in the Russian Federation in ensuring the spatial development of the economy. Their place in this process is not specified. The Strategy actually did not take into account the differences of the Russian regions in terms of their socio-economic development and innovative potential. The overall conclusion of a significant part of the expert community was reduced to the need for: substantial refinement of the Strategy; concretization of its basic provisions; developing mechanisms to enhance the role the Russian regions in this process, taking into account differences in their levels of development and socio-economic potential. An attempt to demonstrate the significance of these differences was undertaken in this study, the results of which are summarized in this article.