Increasing the competitiveness of territorial communities in relation to the new regional policy in Ukraine

Abstract

The article concentrates on the fact that conditions of regional development in Ukraine have changed significantly in the last decade. Therefore, the following initiatives should be taken: to formulate a new regional policy, to further decentralize, and strengthen the competitiveness of territorial communities, or in other words, basic administrative units. The specific features of the competitiveness of territorial communities are outlined. The author also establishes a classification of factors relevant to the competitiveness of territorial communities and identifies new aspects of their formation and functioning. The paper presents the following integrated criteria of competitiveness: competitive advantages, self- reliance, and economic security of citizens. The author provides an empirical analysis of united territorial communities in the Ternopil region based on the indicators of financial self- reliance of the communities, which include income per capita, budget subsidy level, the share of management costs in own resources (without transfers). Special attention is paid to a resource-based analysis and some approaches to the assessment of competitiveness of territorial communities are proposed. The results indicate that there are some limiting factors that might hinder the competitiveness of territorial communities, namely: poor production and living conditions; underdevelopment and deterioration of social and cultural sphere; lack of transport facilities; ecological problems of diminishing diversification and primary production; narrow focus of direct foreign investments; investments in industries with rapid turnover of capital; low level of the competitiveness of manufacturing facilities located in the united territorial communities; poor qualifications of personnel; insufficient labour force; poor demographic situation. The article emphasizes the importance to formulate a strategy for strengthening the competitiveness of united territorial communities as a component of the Strategy for its development and implementation of the weighted algorithm for strateging. A range of strategic priorities of effective regional policies for increasing the competitiveness of territorial communities are described, and institutional barriers of their implementation are determined. In addition, the author formulates mechanisms for increasing the competitiveness of united territorial communities under the conditions of decentralization, particularly in terms of scenario modelling, strateging, implementing local marketing, building a brand identity of a territory, municipal financial management, risk management, etc. It is claimed that there is a great difference in initial conditions of united territorial communities and differences in using resources, which requires a situational approach and adherence to the principles of balanced development (support) within the region referring to some depressed united territorial communities.