Siberia and the Far East: common problems and common features of economic growth

The similarity of many problems between Siberia and the Far East and their extraordinary importance for Russia's future predetermine a need for a unified regional policy in this macro region. The imperative of this policy must be: the efficient development of Siberia-the-Far-East as a part of the indivisible Russia. The unified state policy in this macro region does not mean a territorial unification but a combination of common approaches and internal regional diversity. At the phase of economic recovery, the dynamics of the Siberian and Far Eastern regions must correspond with the GDP growth. This, however, is not the case in many Siberian and Far Eastern areas, which is obviously the result of their isolation from the national market not compensated by involvement in the world market, while to a drop of GDP they are more sensitive than other areas of the country. Most Siberian and Far Eastern regions have a positive net balance of the generated and used GDP (US$11.1 billion in 1999). The money proceeds from sales of goods and services equating this balance drop out from the regional economic turnover, are not used in consumption and accumulation. Most Siberian and the Far Eastern regions are financial donors, but donors of the world economy instead of the national economy, and the total value of this balance is comparable with the capital export from Russia. A precondition for the economic growth in this macro region is to diminish this financial outflow; its persistence will be still more negatively reflected on the per capita income, migration turnover, investment opportunities and competitiveness of most economic sectors.