DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-2.176.2021.16-21

The Spatial Development Strategy (Strategy) needs a radical overhaul, and the priority actions should detail the promising economic specializations of the Russian regions. Methodological and substantive gaps are actively discussed by analysts and the academic community. At the same time, the fact of the absence of one of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation dropped out of account, and therefore, the detailed elaboration of promising activities contains only 84 out of 85 regions. In the presented study, a quantitative analysis of promising economic specializations of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation was made based on a comparison of the Strategy data with the NACE. There is given a constructive criticism of the applied system for identifying the industry specialization of the subjects of the Russian Federation based on the NACE’ approach. There are done recommendations on primary measures in identifying the industry specialization of the Russian state. The results of the study confirm the need for a radical revision of the classification of industry specialization of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation