The new decree was published at the end of 2024 by the Government and finalised the key terms of Russia's spatial development as well as addressing the issues of regional economies, social and demographic aspects, and international co-operation.
The new strategy addresses the following tasks:
One of the innovations of the approved strategy is the creation of a unified list of support settlements and the consolidation of key terms that have been used recently, such as geostrategic territory, urban agglomeration, and resource centre, etc.
For more information on support settlements, The Arctic Century featured an opinion devoted to this mechanism: Russian Support Cities: A New Strategic Mechanism in the Arctic.
Among the priority tasks for the development of these settlements are the construction of housing, the creation of communal and social infrastructure to attract personnel, the development of transport, and the expansion of interregional economic ties.
The strategy mentions a number of issues that should be addressed within the period of 2025–2030. These are:
The strategy is clearly oriented towards the social component: the priority tasks for the development of support settlements include housing construction, creation of infrastructure to attract personnel, transport development, and expansion of interregional economic ties.
The press release on the official website highlights the quality of life as a mean to address spatial development:
Improving the quality of life will largely help to solve urgent tasks of spatial development for larger territories—federal districts, the Arctic zone of Russia, and new regions.
The document mentions the Arctic more than 30 times. The strategy introduces extensive characteristics of climate change and increased maritime activity. "The average annual near-surface air temperature in the Russian Federation since the mid-1970s has been increasing by an average of 0.5 degrees Celsius per 10 years (in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation - 0.7 degrees Celsius per 10 years), which is 2.8 times higher than the global rate."
Climate change creates prerequisites for increasing the impact of natural processes on the socio-economic development of regions, the settlement system, and territorial development.
The use of this scientific data presents interest in light of different statistics across countries. For more information, see The Arctic Century's publication—A 'Climate-Benefitting' Russia in the Arctic Discourse.
One of the main priorities for the Far Eastern Federal District and the Arctic zone, according to the strategy, is to enhance international trade relations. This involves improving the efficiency of the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian railways, the Northern Sea Route, seaports on the Pacific coast, and building roads linking these ports with logistics centres.
The document devotes special attention (without specification to the Arctic) to the reorientation of the country's economy and co-operation with China, Turkey, India, Iran, Mongolia, the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as countries in South-East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America.
Within three months, the Ministry of Economic Development, together with other authorities, will present an action plan for the implementation of the strategy.
Source: Government.ru
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