German experts and Ufa’s scientists discussed prospects of cluster model in economics

The “round table”, held at the Institute of social-economic researches RB today, was devoted to development of clusters in Bashkortostan.

The discussion was held with participation of German experts M-r Kurt Hornshield and M-r Carl-Heinz Clinger. They are the main German experts on the project “Development and realization of Bashkortostan’s industrial policy restructuring”. The project is developed by Ministry of industry and external economic relations RB jointly with Ministry of economics and technologies of Germany.

Participants of the “round table” exchanged views concerning methodological aspects of the cluster policy and pointed to pluses and minuses of the applied approaches.

At present time both in Bashkortostan and Russia there are some moments, which restrain the general development, including raw material export orientation and sizeable wear of the main assets. In this connection the usage of cluster technologies looks rather promising and high concentration of industrial productions and scientific institutions in the region will contribute to consolidation of the efforts in some directions. The clusters in their turn are called to raise the innovational activity in the region, its competitive ability and inflow of investments.

Science defines two main types of clusters: the innovational type and the traditional. Both variants can be successfully applied in Bashkortostan. A scientific institution stands in the center of the innovational cluster and it is the purveyor of innovational technologies. Industrial enterprise has to be the nucleus of the traditional cluster: it perfects already produced and demanded in the market product.

The scheme of potential clusters in Bashkortostan has become the result of the scientific work. In opinion of our scientists about 20 clusters can be established in Bashkortostan: the innovational clusters – the cluster of aviation technologies, oil mining, medical technologies, the bee-keeping cluster and several others. The potential traditional clusters are: the woodworking cluster, motor-car cluster, polyether one etc. For every direction the researchers offer a concrete cluster model.

“You’ve carried out very serious work, using the approach, very popular in science today” – M-r Hornshield said – “We will use your designs and would like to see you among our partners. From the point of view of the analysis I wouldn’t be able to do it better than you”.

The meeting of the workgroup on establishment of the woodworking cluster will take place today after lunch and prospects of the power-engineering machine-building cluster and the tourist cluster will be discussed on Thursday. The final meeting will take place on Friday.