Felix Rybakov
Professor, Faculty of Economics, St Petersburg State University
Head, Northwest Centre for Economic Monitoring
Northwest Russia covers 1.5m square kilometres and has 14.5m inhabitants. It comprises 11 administrative regions of the Russian Federation. It plays a large role in Russia’s economy, accounting for 12.7% of industrial output, 7% of agricultural output and 10.3% of the service sector.
From May 2000, Northwest Russia has been administratively represented by the Northwest Federal District. As is well known, in accordance with Presidential Decree No 849 of 13 May 2000, on the Russian Federation’s presidential plenipotentiaries in the federal districts, and Decree No 1149 of 21 June 2000 on he activities of the president’s plenipotentiaries in he federal district, seven new administrative-territorial units, named Federal Districts, were set up:
Central, Northwest, North Caucasus, Volga, Urals, Siberian and the Far East.
The aim of the new federal district structure, as laid out in Presidential Decree 849, was to ensure that the President of the Russian Federation could carry out his constitutional plenary powers. The new structure was meant to raise the effectiveness of the federal organs of state power and to ensure that the districts have effective control over the implementation of decisions by these federal organs.
This decision to set up the federal districts can be xplained primarily by Russia’s large number of dministrative regions and the fact it is impossible to manage economic and social processes effectively from a single centre. The experience of the last decade of the twentieth century clearly demonstrated how far separatism and the game of sovereignty can go.
As was pointed out in the doctrine for northwest Russia’s development, an administrative ‘spring-clean’ of the country is required.
Merely revitalising existing economic structures is simply not enough. At first glance, a federal district is a new administrative unit comprising several regions.
In other words, the 89 administrative regions (this general term covers oblasts and certain republics and cities) of the Russian Federation are now subsumed under seven new overarching administrative - territorial units – the federal districts. The Central Federal District comprises 18 regions, the Northwest 11, the North Caucasus 13, the Volga 15, the Urals 6, Siberia 16 and the Far East 10.
The territory of each district ranges from 3.5% of the total Russian Federation landmass (North Caucasus Federal District) to 36.3% (the Far East Federal District). By population, the range is from 4.9% of Russian total population (Far Eastern Federal District) to 25.4% (Central Federal District). Table One shows each federal district’s share of Russia’s total socio-economic indicators. As is clear in Table One, the share of gross regional product by federal district ranges between 6% and 29.3%, i.e., a fivefold difference. Volume of industrial output ranges from 5.7% to 23.9%, and agricultural output from 3.1% to 27% – a tenfold difference. The difference in retail trade turnover is even higher, ranging from 4.2% to 43.7%.
