Assessment of competitiveness of the timber complexes of the territories

In modern conditions of competition between subjects of economic activities the opportunities for organizations to increase competitiveness of their products are limited. However, in some industries there remains a significant potential to promote this growth. Such segments include the timber complex, which is of great importance in the economy of regions in the Northwestern Federal District. For example, the share of forest products in the Republic of Karelia in 2014 accounted for 28% of the total industrial production in the region. Due to the differential development of the timber complex in different regions it is important to conduct a comparative evaluation of competitiveness of the timber sector in regional economy to identify issues and driving forces of its growth. In this regard, the goal is to determine the competitiveness of timber complexes using appropriate methodological evaluation tools. The article considers methods of estimation of competitiveness of production of the timber industry, forest resources, enterprises, and the industry. The author presents the tools for assessing the competitiveness of the industry, updated for the timber industry in the regional economy. On the example of regions of the Northwestern Federal District, the author calculates the integral indicator of competitiveness of the timber complex, including three indicative blocks of performance - production factors index, the index of the determinants of production factors, and the index of conditions promoting the effect of the determinants of production factors. According to the results of the evaluation, in 2014, the timber complex of the Arkhangelsk Oblast was a leader, and the timber complex of the Murmansk Oblast - an outsider. The timber complex of the Vologda Oblast from 2012 to 2014 was among the three most competitive ones in the North-West of Russia, which was due to the fact that its companies achieved good indicators for the growth of production of timber products, advanced updating of fixed assets of enterprises, growth of profitability of assets, increase in the number of processing enterprises in the sector, etc. However, in the timber industry of the Vologda Oblast there still remain significant challenges that hinder the growth of competitiveness; to deal with these issues, the author proposed a number of measures to improve the normative-legal base, to develop forest infrastructure, to improve forestry, logging and woodworking activity.