General and intraregional trends and priorities of socio-economic development in Sakhalin oblast

The article describes the features of the socio-economic situation of Sakhalin Oblast, its development trends since the 1990s, both general and territorially differentiated ones. The economic and geographical position of the region with allocation of conditional market zones, including foreign destinations, is considered. Data on the state and dynamics of the main socio-economic indicators of the region, as well as its place in the Far Eastern Federal District by these indicators are provided. The dynamics of the population of the region is shown. The oil and gas industry and gas processing make a basis of the modern economy of the region that stipulates high values of the socio-economic indicators. Favorable and unfavorable factors that can affect the long-term development of the region are highlighted. The comparison of Sakhalin Oblast with other constituent entities of the Russian Federation is carried out using the proposed integral coefficient of the ratio of socio-economic indicators. The levels of the development in all municipal districts were assessed by 7 different socio-economic indicators. The large territorial differences in nearly all individual socio-economic indicators were revealed. Based on the scoring of all socio-economic indicators, the districts were grouped according to their general level of the development. These assessments also showed significant intra-district socio- economic differentiation. Taking into account a number of available favorable prerequisites, the regional development program and scientific proposals for diversification of the economic development of the region, the priority economic activities were summarized; and the role of the territories of advanced development (TADs) being created in the region was shown. Some conclusions were made about the role of the prerequisites in location of priority activities in many areas of the region.