Examination of mechanisms of regional sustainable development strategy as exemplified by the leningrad region

Abstract

Sustainable regional development can be achieved through balanced use and development of the region's industrial potential, improvement of its socioeconomic performance and drawing up a logical and prudent list of priorities and regional development indicators in strategy papers to ensure consistency with the actual economic situation in the region and maximum utilisation of the available development potential. The above highlights the importance of analysing the region's socioeconomic conditions, identifying the weaknesses in development at the national level in general and priority industries in the region in particular and drawing up regional development scenarios to chart the optimum balanced path during the transition toward the digital interaction environment. The aim of the research is to analyse the content of strategy papers in order to identify priority development directions for the region in question, favourable territories at the microlevel for maximum fulfilment of the regional strategy (i.e. municipalities) and priority industries to support the region's balanced development in the long term. For that, the ranking scoring method is proposed for municipalities, which is based on the parametric analysis. The normative inferences are drawn from quantitative comparisons of statistical data for the region and municipalities, i.e. an aggregate score of a municipality is determined based on the selected criteria, according to which the municipality is assigned its rank. Simultaneously, the values for the Leningrad region as a whole are also presented. The method of calculating the indicators of the basic type of economic activity (an integrated set of indicators) is then used to identify the region's priority industry. As a result, municipalities with high socioeconomic profile are identified in the Leningrad region, which are the Vsevolozhsky municipal district, Sosnovoborsky urban district, Lomonosovsky municipal district and Gatchinsky municipal district. These territories show the strongest potential for implementing the mechanisms of sustainable development strategies. The analysis indicated the following priority industries for sustainable development of the Leningrad region: manufacturing, transport and communications, wholesale and retail trade, real estate transactions and construction. Accordingly, targeted financing of modernisation in these industries would lead to sustainable long-term development in the Leningrad region.