Role of the industrial policy in the conditions of intensive development of competitive advantages of a territory

Formation of the state industrial policy
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Abstract:

The financial crisis of 2014–2015 accompanied by unfavorable market conditions, increased foreign policy risks, the devaluation of the national currency, the extension of the food embargo, and the reduced availability of debt financing has a significant impact on the sources of competitive advantages of the domestic industry. During the crisis, the external factors of competitiveness, due to the extensive growth of industrial production, are replaced by internal reserves obtained by optimizing the business processes and improving the quality of business systems. In these circumstances, preparing a complex of pre-emptive anti-crisis measures that are an adequate response to the emerging threats and possible consequences leads to a natural reinterpretation of the existing scientific paradigms and positions of the competitiveness theory. The goal of this study was developing an methodology of the industrial policy of a territory based on studying the competitive positions by type of economic activity, determining the relevant economic activities and diagnosing their competitive advantages. Implementating the industrial policy is accompanied by a search for a compromise between the social and the economic efficiency of measures to improve the competitiveness of industries and territories. An important issue in the selective industrial policy is substantiating the priority (target) industries that could potentially serve as a source of the imperative strategic advantages of a territory. Assessing efficiency of the process of controlling the competitive advantages is a rather complex methodological problem, since the implementation of management actions is accompanied by receiving indirect and related results that need to be additionally taken into account and assessed. This applies above all to the problem of industrial policy based on the structural modernization of the economic complex, which implies a qualitative change in the industrial structure and entails preparing the production factors and infrastructural support. Such decisions often lead to unintended social reactions; it is not always possible to predict the consequence of these reaction due to a lack of a sound theoretical basis and reliable methodological tools. The article used the experience and knowledge gained through a series of projects related to assessing the efficiency of the economy of the Republic of Tatarstan in 2005–2011. Considering these approaches, as well as the obtained interrelations between the structural and the competition policies, the authors proposed to consider the industrial policy as a system of measures aimed at developing the core competitive advantages of the priority economic activities ensuring the growth of the competitiveness of the territory. The most important task of this policy is preserving and promoting the competitive mechanisms in the areas where they contribute to the more effective implementation of the planned measures. This definition reflects the systemic, the targeted, the structural, and the competitive nature of the state industrial policy.