With the help of EPICENTER's information and research system, over 800 alternative producers of 35 types of raw materials, fuel, other materials, and associated deficit goods required by enterprises of the Nizhni Novgorod oblast, have been found. It also provides recommendations on the re- orientation of the oblast's economic ties.

As well as urgently required measures to reduce fuel and energy, we believe that inter-regional supply lines can be improved by taking the following steps:

- the development of local production of goods, which can be produced in the oblast (building materials, table salt, organic synthesis products, agricultural technology, electricity based on local raw materials, such as peat, textiles and other articles of light industry);

- a gradual re-orientation of economic contacts toward regions within Russia (ferrous metals from the Urals and Western Siberia, titanium from Krasnoyarsk territory, agricultural technology from the Central Economic Region and Western Siberia, and radio parts from the Central Region and the republic of Mariy-El);

- a search for alternative suppliers in a bid to eliminate all dependence on monopolist regions (oil, coal, and gas from the Astrakhan and Orenburg oblasts, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan).

The last two steps should be consolidated via investments, technical and material assistance in the development and expansion of production in other regions, which are required by the oblast. Such steps have already been taken by Nizhni Novgorod oblast administration with respect to Kaliningrad oblast (in the development of a fishing fleet). Analogous measures could be undertaken in Volgograd oblast in the construction of "river-sea" tankers. In terms of potential re-integration, the group of "crystallization nuclei" is very important: Nizhni Novgorod- Samara (in the Greater Volga association) - Novosibirsk (bilateral agreement) - Krasnodar (personal contacts between governors, bilateral ties, and the creation of the Nizhni Novgorod - Ekaterinodar trading house).

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