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Gaybullaev Feruz, candidate (PhD) of economics, doctoral degree student of the Institute of Forecasting and Macroeconomic Research at the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Uzbekistan E-mail: F. GaybuUaev2@ifmr.uz
RESOURCE SAVING IS THE PRINCIPAL GOAL IN DEVELOPING THE INNOVATIVE STRATEGY OF LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: The article addresses the goals and objectives of the Long-term Development Strategy with general principles of building it, as well as the specific features of their implementation as applicable to the problems and priorities of development of the national economy of Uzbekistan. The necessity of transition to a resource-saving model of sustainable development and expansion of productive employment, focused on the introduction of new technologies and innovations, is substantiated.
Keywords: resource saving, long-term development strategy, innovative technologies, development priorities, prospective technology platforms.
One of the key reserves for growth of production efficiency and increasing its competitiveness is modernization of state institutions and management technologies.
The resolutions adopted by the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan and other regulatory documents have set the task of improving the system of organization of economy management, phased reduction of government regulation, introduction of market mechanisms of macroregulation, formation of an effective competitive environment.
In this regard, for the purposes of improvement of the structure of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan in accordance with the requirements of deepening economic reforms and dynamic socio-economic development of the country, the Resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated 12 June 2017 No. PP-3051 about Additional Actions for Improvement of the Executive Structure of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan was issued, which reflects the activities for creation of a qualitatively new, modern and effectively functioning system of the Uzbekistan government [1].
At the same time, liberalization of the economy and the management system aimed at improving the efficiency of mac-roregulation, creating competition and other prerequisites for formation of the demand for innovative products and technologies, brings the risks of loss of economy manageability, especially if the taken actions are not sufficiently thought-out, justified, coordinated and are premature. Solving the problem of combining the provision of economy manageability as a whole with expansion of opportunities for self-regulation of economic entities based on operation ofmarket mechanisms is impossible without transition to new methods of planning and managing the economy based on the principles of strategic planning and
forecasting [2]. The determinant structure for the strategic plans is the Long-term Development Strategy (LDS).
In the framework of the concept of administrative reform approved by the Government of the Republic on 21 September 2017, it is envisaged to "create a system of strategic planning allowing to form future models of innovative development of the top-priority fields and sectors based on long-term scenarios of enhancing the country's intellectual and technological potential, including that realized by the way of legislative definition of the notions of "short-term", "medium-term" and "long-term" development program. It is the creation of a strategic planning system that is determined as the most important direction of innovative development of Uzbekistan [3].
Many sectoral and regional development programs for medium-term and long-term future have been recently developed and adopted in the Republic. However, the absence of national strategy determining the country's most important development priorities for the next 15-20 years does not allow to harmonize the parameters of individual target programs within a uniform approach to solving the problem of increasing the competitiveness of the national economy and sustainability of its development. It's not a coincidence that that many of the target programs and investment projects adopted in previous years showed their inefficiency, that negatively affected the investment climate and attractiveness of the country for foreign investors [4].
The long-term development strategy is the key tool for rational addressing the issue of selection of priority areas for economic development for long-term future based on a system of scientifically justified apprehensions about the future and alternative ways of development. In the recent time, in the conditions of growing globalization and instability of the
world economy development, the role of long-term planning and forecasting is steadily growing. The international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank, the NATO as the basis of their reports constantly use the tool of long-term forecasting [5]. In addition, not only the developed countries [6], but also the developing ones, started to use such a tool in formulation of their strategies. For example, China has long-term development forecasts for the periods till 2020, 2030 and 2050 with the emphasis on solving the problems of economic development in general, science, technology and innovation.
What is the practical need for this document? The strategy should provide all the participants of economic activity with the answer to the two key questions:
1. What do we want to achieve in the next 15-20 years (a vision of the position of the national economy in the future global world)?
2. How to achieve the set goals within the framework of strict resource constraints, taking into account the increasing risks and challenges of long-term development?
The opportunity to obtain convincing answers to these questions is largely determined by the principles underlying the Strategy. Analysis of the world experience shows that the key principles are following:
- the principle of systemacity, integrity of the strategy, comprehensive approach to solving the problem of sustainable development;
- the principle of using the advanced world experience applicable for the Republic in substantiation of the model, priorities, reserves and sources of development;
- the principle of succession of steps (stages) in achieving the set goal, switching the priorities in the choice of sources (factors) of development during transition from one stage to another;
- the principle of realism of the proposed ways, actions and mechanisms to achieve the benchmark targets, based on a convincing evidence base for selection of new sources of economic growth, formation of the conditions and mechanisms for realization of the existing reserves for development of the national economy.
The following describes the approaches to implementation of these principles in the process of developing the national development strategy (NDS) of Uzbekistan 2035.
The principle of systemacity and integrity of the strategy is based on the need to develop the NDS, taking into account the following interrelated factors:
• focus on long-term development goals (informal and formal in the system of indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of Uzbekistan till 2030);
• consideration of the global scientific and technological development and future, most probable trends of development of the world economy;
• consideration of new challenges, barriers, risks and objective limitations of sustainable development, having long-term nature;
• consideration of the potential of existing factors (sources) of economic growth and unused current and future competitive advantages of the national economy (corridors of opportunities, development reserves);
• connecting the proposed ways, development models, actions and mechanisms for its implementation with the prospects of development of the global economy, the expected risks and other factors considered above.
By the present time, the expert community has established a steady apprehension of the long-term development goal of Uzbekistan — raising the level and quality of life of the population to the social standards that are characteristic for the countries in the upper segment of the medium-developed countries of the world. At the same time, it should be ensured the development of the potential for sustainable development, the preservation and, in some areas, the improvement of environmental parameters. Separate target indicators for the long-term period are reflected in the UN document "Uzbekistan SDG 2035", which is currently at the final stage of discussion and approval.
The more difficult problem is consideration of the trends of world development and selection of national priorities of scientific and technological progress for the next 10-15 years. The range of current scientific researches and technological developments is extremely wide and can include several hundred basic technologies [7]. As in any forecast, for many of them there is a high degree of uncertainty, especially for the timing of introduction ofnew discoveries and inventions into commercial operation and the stated characteristics ofnew innovative products and technologies. In view of extremely limited capabilities of the Republic in developing new, or adapting the advanced foreign technologies, the cost of mistake in choosing scientific and technological priorities becomes especially high.
It is the same difficult to also predict the prospects of the world economy development, especially development of the countries in the post-Soviet space, where the main foreign trade flows of Uzbekistan pass. In these conditions, the starting point for the mutual coordination of all these factors should be a new model of economic development of Uzbekistan, based on resource saving, expanding the sustainable employment and introducing new innovative technologies.
Why should resource saving become the priority number one for the next 10-15 years? First of all, during this period the country, while maintaining the achieved economy growth
rate at 5-6% and moderate progress in the field of resource efficiency, will inevitably face the new challenge — increasing shortage of natural and mineral resources — energy, water, land, minerals. Eliminating this deficiency by increasing the recovery of raw materials in the conditions of depletion of explored resources and the increase in the cost of their recovery at new fields or the expansion of its importation does not provide a complete solution of the problem. So, in order to increase electricity production, it is necessary either to enlarge natural gas and coal production, by implementing new capital-intensive investment projects with negative consequences for the environment and sustainable development, or to reduce natural gas exportation. In the first case, there will be an additional need for new equipment and foreign currency resources. In the second case, foreign currency earnings and the ability of purchasing such equipment would be reduced. As a result, the development of the economy in the framework of a capital-intensive resource-based economy leads the country to a dead end: the load on natural capital increases, its vulnerability from external shocks increases, imbalances in the labor market increase, and the development of non-resource-based sectors of the economy slows down.
Resource saving is essential for raising the competitiveness of the national economy. In the conditions when the energy intensity of the national economy is 3.5-4 times higher than the world's average figure, it is difficult to rely on the growth of exportation of processed products, especially in the conditions of rising global demand and prices for energy resources, which negatively affect the cost of production and price competitiveness.
Without resource saving, it's impossible to expand the investment potential of development with orientation on domestic sources of financing. The cause-and-effect relationships arising here can be presented as: Resource saving saving ■ Reduction of costs ■ Growth of profit and investment potential ■ Investments in new sectors and innovative production. At the same time, the Republic has significant non-utilized reserves of production costs reduction, which lie in the plane of modernizing the used technologies, strengthening the institutional system, and increasing the efficiency of state administration.
The transition to digital economy and the introduction of innovative technologies in material-intensive industries and production field create new windows of opportunities for saving energy, water, land resources, more efficient use of budget funds. For this purpose, it is necessary to speed up the process of introducing new information technologies, low-cost and high-speed data processing networks, integrated databases of energy consumers, farms, land cadastres, water users, taxpayers, etc. Integrated databases on incomes and expenditures
of citizens will significantly improve the addressing of social benefits, effectiveness of the use of limited budget funds. The introduction of modern computer systems in the educational process will positively affect the quality of education, will allow to improve the quality of training and the objectiveness of the assessment of professional competencies.
The long-term sectoral scientific and technological forecasts should be another point of bearing for development of the Strategy, with an emphasis on those activities in which the highest potential of comparative advantages and the sustainability of development of the national economy are concentrated. As applicable to the national economy, these are the innovative technologies for production of renewable energy sources, smart energy networks, recycling of mining wastes and production of new building materials with improved properties, production of new energy-efficient types of electric motors and equipment for pumping and water distribution stations, for bioorganic processing of wastes, breeding new varieties of farming plants and species of animals adapted to the expected climatic changes, etc.
At the same time, the state should support not only, and not so much, the investment projects of particular companies in various industries and sectors of economy, but also the projects of development of prospective technology platforms, which promotion corresponds to the strategic development priorities and ensures the use of hidden competitive advantages as new sources of growth. For example, if the introduction of water-saving technologies is determined as a priority, then the state should support not only manufacturers of new generation equipment for water supply and treatment, its distribution, irrigation systems, water control, metering, etc., but also the designers of such equipment (laboratories, engineering centers), consumers of new technologies (farms and industrial enterprises), educational institutions, particular university departments and centers of advanced training of specialists capable to develop and operate this equipment.
Along with the above said, there are a number of other issues that arise in the process of working on the strategy:
- how to organize development and updating of such Strategy, to address the interests of business, the state and investors in it?
- how to correctly build the sequence of steps (stages) in achieving the set goal, switching the priorities in the choice of sources (factors) of development during transition from one stage to another?
- what methods should be used in this case? etc.
The limited framework of the article does not allow to touch on these problems. However, there is no doubt of the need to develop as a top priority and adopt the Law on Strategic Planning aimed at creating all regulatory, organizational, methodological,
informational, personnel conditions and prerequisites, which allow to form an effective model of future development of the country based on scientific approaches with emphasis to increasing the economy sustainability, growth of living standards of the population, new sources of economic growth and the most important priorities of macroeconomic regulation.
The law will allow to clearly outline the circle of participants in development of the Strategy, determine their rights and obligations, the procedure of creating the necessary organizational and methodological conditions and prerequisites for developing long-term forecasts in coordination with medium-term indicative plans, sectoral and regional development strategies.
References:
1. Resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated 12 June 2017 No. PP-3051 about the Additional Actions for Improvement of the Executive Structure of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
2. Chepel S. "Indicative Planning: a Modern Term or a Prospective Way of Innovative Renewal of the Existing System of Economic Management". "Market, Money and Credit", - Tashkent, - No. 2. 2018.
3. Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan. "On Formation of the Ministry of Innovative Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan", approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated 29 November 2017. No. UP-5264.
4. See "Instead of Annual Investment Programs, State Development Programs will Appear that are Designed for Long Term Future" - Tashkent, 19 December 2017. Sputnik, 09:50.
5. Papers of the international organizations: Global Environment Outlook, Global Economic Prospects, Global Development Finance, World Energy Outlook, Prognostic Studies (with large volumes of statistical data), Asian Development Outlook, Multiple Futures Project - Navigating towards 2030: Findings and Recommendations.
6. For example, in USA: Global Trends, Mapping Global Future and Global Governance, Topical and global trends forecasts on security and defense, situation in the world economy, public health service and education, ecology etc.BEC: The World in 2025: Rising Asia and Socio-Ecological Transition, Forecast 2030.
7. The Forecast of Scientific and Technological Development of Russia till 2030 was prepared in the context of 800 technologies in 10 promising fields ("Information and Communication Technologies"; "Biotechnologies"; "Medicine and Healthcare"; "New Materials and Nanotechnologies"; "Rational Use of Natural Resources"; "Transport and Space Systems"; "Energy Efficiency and energy Saving", etc.- see Forecast of Scientific and Technological Development of Russia: 2030/ edited by L. M. Gokhberg.- Moscow: Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research University "Higher School of Economics" 2014).
