Assessing the potential for import substitution of goods in the Vologda region

He search for directions of long-term development of the regional economy in the unstable geopolitical situation is an urgent task of scientific research. Within the framework of achieving the targets set at the federal level, the intensification of the import substitution policy will make it possible to solve the tasks of reducing the import dependence of the economy, developing manufacturing industries and producing competitive products for domestic and foreign markets. The aim of the research is to identify commodity groups produced in the Vologda Region that can become the basis of import substitution for the region and the whole country. We assessed the potential for import substitution of individual goods based on the statistics of foreign trade of the region and Russia for 2021. After analyzing the structure of foreign trade of the Vologda Region and Russia, we determined that significant shares in their imports are occupied by high value-added products, and in exports - by raw materials and goods with low added value. The need to increase the number of enterprises engaged in the production of finished products with high added value in order to create analogs of imported goods has been identified. For each group of goods, we calculated the share of the region's exports in Russia's exports, the coefficient of export specialization, and the ratio of exports from the region and imports of the same group of goods into the country. Depending on the values of these indicators, the paper concludes about the level of import substitution potential for each commodity group. We identified the most important goods in the country's exports produced in the Vologda Region: wire, inorganic acids and products of high-temperature distillation of coal tar. The results of the work are of interest to researchers of regional economy and representatives of executive bodies of state power.