Innovative growth points of the region’s manufacturing industry

Abstract

The withdrawal of foreign companies from the Russian market has led to the emergence of market niches that can be occupied by domestic manufacturers. Russia’s involvement in global value chains has led to a serious dependence on products from abroad and, as a result, to the degradation of a number of technological industries. With the strengthening of Western sanctions, the prompt replacement of goods that have ceased to be supplied to the country is a priority task for the executive authorities. The policy of import substitution, the implementation of which began in 2014, has been more successful in ensuring the national food security of the country, while high-tech industries are still critically dependent on imported equipment and technologies. Therefore, the identification of points of innovative growth in the regions allows us to identify manufacturing industries whose support will lead to leveling the negative consequences of the shortage of certain products in the domestic market. Until 2022, imports of technologically complex goods from the EU, the USA, and other countries included in the list of “unfriendly” occupied a significant share in the foreign trade of most regions. The regions of the Northwestern Federal District are industrially developed, and the problem of obsolescence of fixed assets was solved mainly through cooperation with foreign companies. Thus, the identification of promising industries capable of producing analogues of these goods is an urgent task for research. The aim of the study is to identify innovative points of growth of the manufacturing industry in the economy of the regions of the Northwestern Federal District of Russia. The article analyzes the structure of the economy of the regions in the District, their industry specialization, including the production of innovative products. The main methods of solving problems in the work are the use of the specialization coefficient for the average number of employees, the coefficient of specialization in the production of innovative products, and the coefficient of use of advanced production technologies. After comparing the indicators of specialization by the number of employees and the production of innovative products, the industries, whose activation can become a driver of the region’s economic growth in the near future, are identified. The region’s specialization in the production of innovative products determines the long-term prospects for its development for stable socio-economic development. In this regard, recommendations are developed for executive authorities to support certain types of economic activity, to activate the transition to the production of products with higher added value and to simplify the procedures for commercialization of the developed technologies. The results of the study are useful for the executive authorities of the region and scientists researching regional development problems.