Improvement of the Methods for Evaluation of Regional Competitiveness

The research aims to develop a methodology for assessing regional competitiveness. The study examines existing methods in the field and identifies their shortcomings. The analysis revealed that none of the methods for assessing regional competitiveness takes into account the performance of agriculture, whereas the agro-industrial complex plays a principal role in national socioeconomic development. The author suggests a methodology for evaluating regional competitiveness on the basis of ratings, allowing for the main economic trends in 2010–2015. As a result, the author deduces an integrated indicator of regional competitiveness, calculated on the basis of three factors: the index of socioeconomic development of a region, the index of regional competitiveness in terms of the performance of agriculture and the arithmetic mean of the calculated indices of the region's activity in the domestic and foreign markets.