Paul Goble
Staunton, July 27 – The economic system which emerged in Russia over the last 30 years is being shattered by the developments since February 24, Nikolay Novichkov says; and that gives the country’s regions “a unique chance” for development if both they and Moscow recognize that possibility and how that will benefit both the regions and the country as a whole.
For the last three decades, Russian economic development has had a positive impact only on the capitals and on regions which produce petroleum for export, the economist and Duma deputy says. Now, as petroleum exports have fallen and the need to produce alternatives to goods Russia can no longer import, the regions have the opportunity to contribute to a breakthrough.
More than the capitals which have de-industrialized and the petroleum-producing regions which have had little interest in anything else, Russia’s other regions have retained much of the industrial capacity they had but was ever less used and educational systems designed to support that capacity (mk.ru/economics/2022/07/27/novyy-mirovoy-poryadok-daet-unikalnyy-shans-rossiyskim-regionam.html).
That gives these regions advantages but even more of those arise from the fact that they are in many cases located along the north-south and east-west transit corridors that Russia’s enormous size makes critical for the future development not only of the country itself but of the international system in the future, Novichkov says.
That gives the regions advantages, but others flow from the fact that “each region is special … There is no a single region like its neighbors and this is not a figure of speech but a conscious approach to territorial development. To identify regional and even local uniqueness” and to exploit it is “the most important task of regional policy.”
For this to happen, the economist concludes, both the regions and Moscow must recognize this new reality.
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