Localization of production – a world practice and conclusions for Ukraine

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of localization measures in the practice of countries with different levels of development, localization requirements in Ukraine are still rare. Meanwhile, the dependence of Ukrainian economy on imports increases and acquires threatening dimensions. The expansion of imports begets weakening of country's economic stability, nourishes the structural crisis, impedes the development of industry, and causes a situation where imports suppress production instead of complementing it. These problems represent the focus of the present study, which deals with theoretical and practical aspects of production localization. The study aims at determining the essence and forms of the requirements for localization, generalizing the world experience in applying such requirements with identifying their effectiveness, analyzing the specificity of such requirements in individual sectors of economy, and substantiating the economic necessity of their use in Ukraine. The estimation of the import dependence of Ukrainian economy and, in particular, its industrial sector, based on data of the input-output tables allows detecting an excessive level of import dependence of Ukrainian economy and industry. It is proved that the proportions in which imports are involved in the economic processes are extraordinary, and hence a corresponding regulation with the application of systemic measures for production localization is required. The author identifies the areas of desirable application of the localization requirements for those industries that are critically dependent on imports by intermediate consumption, final consumption and gross capital formation, as well as various promising types of production with a solid scientific and innovation base.