The eastern regions of Russia are the convenient zone in which Russia cooperates with the actively developing Asian region. The key states of North-East Asia such as China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea are the largest participants in world trade at the present stage. The servicing of large-scale commodity flows with the European Union and the U.S. is provided by the market of transport services, by means of which the most effective schemes of delivery are built. Under these conditions, the transport system of the East of Russia has objective prerequisites for integration into the international transport system. The goal of our present study is to assess the potential of integration of the transport system of the Far East in the market of transport services in North-East Asia. At the same time, we assess integration opportunities with the help of dividing the territory of the East of Russia into districts based on the results of cluster analysis. Considering the achievement of the research goal, this approach is a new one. The need for division is due to the fact that the Far East is quite a large region, extremely heterogeneous in its internal composition, economic-geographical and socio-economic characteristics. Constituent entities of the Russian Federation as part of the Far Eastern Federal District have, among other things, different integration potential and level of development of the transport system. In the course of cluster analysis we use indicators of transport network development and the scale of foreign economic activity as the criteria for division. As a result of our calculations, we divide the Far East into five regions that differ in the potential of integration interaction of the transport system with the market of transport services in North-East Asia. The paper presents specific features of the selected areas, characteristics of transport systems and prospects for participation in the international transport market. In the future, it is possible to conduct a study taking into account the projects for development of the transport system of the Far East, which adjust the prospects for integration interactions
Keywords
integration, transport system, cluster analysis, russian far east, north-east asia, transport services market