Regional industrial policy in the Arctic territories: what is it and what should it be?
Authors:   Luzin Institute for Economic Studies of the Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pilyasov Alexander N. 
Published: October 2021

The moment of truth for regional industrial policy in the Arctic has arrived. At the federal level, the need for an active state policy in the Arctic has been recognized — in recent years, state and private corporations have been implementing a dozen new projects. But there is no clarity in the priorities, directions, versions of the regional industrial policy in the Arctic. Based on the analysis of regional strategies for the socio-economic development of the Arctic territories, seven directions for an active industrial policy are outlined: energy, food and transport security, industry of local building materials, environmental industry, production localization of corporate projects and restructuring of production in old industrial cities and regions. The analysis of regional industrial policy laws confirmed that their context and advancedness depend on the size and internal structure of the regional industrial sector. Despite the huge role that corporate structures play in the aggregate industrial production, the issues of interaction with them and the formation of a general agenda for industrial policy, are indicated in most of the provisions absolutely insufficient. In general, in the Russian Arctic, the district industry forms about three quarters of the total industrial product. The dichotomy of urban and district industry within the industrial sector of the Arctic regions means the need to significantly differentiate the instruments and institutions of local industrial policy within the Arctic zone. The assessment of industrial production volumes, carried out at the level of Arctic municipalities, made it possible to determine the sequence of regions: Yamal- Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Arctic Krasnoyarsk Territory (Norilsk Industrial Region, Taimyr and Evenkia, Turukhansk District), Murmansk Region, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Arctic territories of the Komi Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the Arctic part of the Arkhangelsk Region, the Republic of Karelia and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Based on the developed corporateness index of the local industrial sector, six groups of municipalities (supercorporate, high corporate, dynamic, medium corporate, low dynamic and unincorporated) were identified, for each of which its own package of measures of local industrial policy is advisable. Four different situations of interaction between the main actors of regional industrial policy, represented by regional authorities and companies, can be distinguished: the first is the absence of a corporate structure, when industrial policy is solely carried out by local authorities; the second is the isolated existence of power and corporate business, dangerous by the Dutch disease and the fading of local initiatives in the field of new production projects; the third is a collision of interests between the authorities and business that is destructive for the region and for the dynamics of development; and the fourth is the active interaction of regional authorities and companies with the receipt of synergy effects in regional industrial policy. Popular instruments of modern industrial policy in the form of clusters, parks and zones should not be isolated “cathedrals in the desert”, but effective platforms for integrating the efforts of the authorities, corporations, local business, scientific and educational structures of the region in the implementation of projects and measures of industrial policy. The most important factor in the success of the regional industrial policy in the Arctic is the implementation of the strategy of the owner-region.