Public-private partnership in the region: state and challenges

At the present time it becomes evident that it is possible to ensure high and sustainable rates of country’s development and achieve strategic objectives only with a committed partnership between the authorities and the representatives of private business. In the national economic literature the available information on this issue can be described as contradictory. On the one hand, the number of published works on this topic is large enough (V.G. Varnavskii, R. A. Abramov, S. P. Peregudov, I. Tatarkin, A. A. Spiridonov, L. I. Abalkin and others). However, many works describe the basic shape of the current partnership practice. The insufficient attention is paid to the ways and problems of public-private partnership integration in the strategies and programs for regional development. The Institute of Socio-Economic Development of Territories of the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted a survey in this direction (as part of the annual questionnaire survey of industrial enterprises’ managers in the Vologda Oblast) to assess the degree of partnership development, identify the problems of government-business interaction in the region. Periodicals, Internet resources, data on the annual monitoring of industry development in the Vologda Oblast served as a research data base. To achieve this purpose we used systematic and comprehensive approaches, as well as general scientific research methods (comparative analysis, synthesis, mapping), table and graphical methods of information processing. The questionnaire results revealed a number of factors hindering the formation of partnership relations, including bureaucracy of administrative structures, a lack of budget funds to finance joint projects, difficulties in coming to agreement, etc. Successful public-private partnership includes the implementation of a number of measures at the federal, regional and corporate levels, aimed at coordinating the efforts of all parties, meeting the needs of business and different social groups while developing and implementing social and economic policy.