Program-Targeted Approach to the Formation and Development of Special Economic Zones

Special zones, as a comprehensive spatial tool for providing infrastructure, financial, and customs support to companies and creating a favorable regulatory environment, play a significant role in the implementation of effective general and foreign national economic policy. Given the conceptual, functional, and institutional differences in the conducting of preferential policies in developed and developing economies, it is important to understand the relationship between the level of positive impact of zonal policies and the extent to which their provisions are consistent with national development strategy objectives. The purpose of this article is to develop, using Russia as an example, a concept for a comprehensive program for the development of special zones that will enable Russian territories to move from competing for investment based on a set of incentives and subsidies to competing based on the quality of their value proposition. The study identified three approaches countries take to incorporating zonal policy provisions into strategic planning documents: full, adaptive, and fragmentary integration. The author justifies the need to consider general and foreign-oriented zonal policy in the context of key areas of general and foreign economic policy: trade, investment, industrial (production), technological (innovation), and spatial. The article uses Russia as an example to systematize the provisions of strategic planning documents that should be taken into account in the policy of creating special zones. These provisions are grouped according to key processes: general goal setting (goals and priorities of zonal development); sectoral/territorial goal setting (functional and spatial characteristics of zonal development); forecasting (zonal development scenarios); planning and programming (zonal development tools); and monitoring and control (effectiveness and efficiency of zonal development). The author has designed the parameters of a comprehensive program for Russia in the field of creating and operating special zones, the implementation of which will make it possible to link the development of the country’s general and zonal preferential regimes with the competitive advantages of its territories.