Development of the global competitiveness of Russian regions: the concept and configuration of the "smart" complementarity

Purpose: is to work out the scientifically sound theoretical and methodical framework for the «smart» complementarity of trade flows, aimed at selecting and substantiating potential commodity niches in trade of Russian regions with foreign countries.

Methods: the general methodological basis of the study is the critical analysis of the scientific literature that forms the theoretical and methodological basis for the global competitiveness of individual regions of a country presented in the theories of regional and spatial economy. The study has been carried out by methods of system, structural-logical and abstract-logical analysis.

Results: the research resulted in some fundamental scientific novelties such as: the scientifically grounded theoretical concept of “smart” complementarity, which makes it possible to identify the presence of specific foreign trade niches in a geographical (country, region) and commodity contexts, based on an analysis of the complementarity of trade flows at the level of a Russian region and a foreign country, and assessment of the global competitiveness of the regional economy, as well as “fine” criteria that determine the activity of participants in foreign economic activity. The applied results included a specific configuration of "smart" complementarity – the algorithm for determining promising economic specializations of the region, allowing to combine trade statistics of  a foreign country with data regional statistics, indicating the presence of foreign trade potential, taking into account regional economic specializations. The developed algorithm is intended for the use in an information and analytical system to support management decisions in the field of foreign economic activity of the region.

Conclusions and Relevance: the concept and configuration of «smart» complementarity in their practical implementation in the form of an information and analytical system are proposed in the article to provide the participants of foreign economic activity with data on promising export groups for selected countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This approach allows moving the «center of gravity» of building trade and economic relations with foreign countries from the federal to the regional level. 

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