Karelian regional strategy is determined by the following factors:

• boundary situation of the republic; it borders on the European Union directly and has the longest land border with EU; it`s beneficial for inner regions of Russia;
• it has favorable conditions for industry export (more than 40%); the most important industries are forest, pulp and paper, machinery making, fish, metallurgy, mining;
• the Republic of Karelia takes part in interregional European institutions as a region situated in the basin of the Baltic and Barents seas;
• it has high research - technical potential including Karelian Research Center, more than 10 research institutes, a university, the largest in the North-West of Russia with rich international cooperation experience;
• the unique natural conditions for tourism and rest;

The following goals are to be achieved:

• to combine industry development and environment protection, to preserve the unique northern forests and cultural heritage based on stable principals;
• to integrate the Republic of Karelia into European economic and cultural community;
• to develop the boundary infrastructure including 4-5 International check in points on the full length of 700 km EU border; to realize 2 transnational development corridors
• "Archangelsky corridor" (Komi, Archangelsk, Karelia, Oulu) based on railroad transport, "The Atlantics-Karelia" (Vologda, Karelia, southern Finland, Sweden, Norway) based on high ways, to found free economic zones in boundary regions(Kostomuksha, Sortavala).
• to create and develop processing industries such as furniture, paper, fish, agriculture and food industry and to develop export oriented industries (machinery making and mechanical assembly)
• to further the development of enterprises working out new technologies for the main Karelian industries (including techno-parks and business-incubators), to achieve the international educational standard;
• to turn Karelia into the region with available, civilized and prestigious tourism with developed infrastructure satisfying world standards.