State instruments for the development stimulation of Arctic resources regions

Arctic regions contain significant amounts of natural resources; however, the level of hydrocarbon resources exploration in the region is quite low, which increases the prospect of geological exploration and discovery of new hydrocarbon deposits. The authors studied the features of socio-economic, infrastructural and resource-raw development of the Arctic regions using such indicators as population density, per capita incomes, gross regional product, investments in fixed assets, transport infrastructure, reserves and oil and gas production. It is shown that there is a high differentiation of the regions development in relation to the average Russian indicator. The article considers the state stimulation instruments of oil production in the Arctic regions, with special attention paying to tax benefits. With using cluster analysis, all regions of Russia are divided into groups on tax burden and benefits. The Arctic resource regions are shown to be distributed over two clusters: regions that have a high tax burden due to significant oil production (some of them are traditional and receive fewer benefits); regions that receive significant benefits from the government to intensify oil production. Thus, the analysis revealed that preferential rates for specific industry taxes can be an effective tool for government regulation of strategic industries.