The work proposes a concept for forming strategic priorities for the development of the forest sector in Ukraine, which includes a number of interrelated provisions that characterize factors concerning the scale of manufacturing of forest products, efficiency of using forest resources and allow determining the development directions. The structural and logical model for selecting strategic priorities for the development of the Ukrainian forest sector is developed. The proposed model includes all stages that wood undergoes: from cultivation to harvesting and processing into finished products, with different values of gross value added, and ensures a large-scale manufacturing of forestry products in the country and efficiency of using forest resources. There proposed a methodological approach to assessing the state of forestry and logging activities in Ukraine and countries of the world, which consists of the following components: forest area, growing stock, total wood exports, volume of commercial wood exports. The presented approach includes integral, complex, and partial indicators and allows determining the ways for increasing forest resources in the country. There worked out methodological provisions for assessing progressiveness of the structure of the Ukrainian and world forest sector. The provisions are based on the classification of its production and technological limits in terms of gross value added, include integral and partial indicators, and allow determining the directions of progressive structural shifts in the country’s forest sector. The work suggests three scenarios for the development of the Ukrainian forest sector: organizational and legal, import substitution, and export orientation one, which are short-term, medium-term, and long-term, respectively, and include a number of measures to ensure their implementation. There elaborated a methodological approach to evaluating competitiveness of manufacturing production of the forest sector in Ukraine and countries of the world as a whole and of individual economic activities. The approach takes into account production efficiency (level of gross value added, material and energy intensity) as well as dependence of intermediate production on imports and makes it possible to determine directions for modernization of production. The dissertation proposes a methodological approach to the identification of the functioning and emerging clusters engaged in the forest sector in the regions of Ukraine and the determination of priority directions of their development. The proposed approach is based on the system of positioning matrices of the country’s regions in the coordinate plane: scale and significance of the forest sector, volume of wood exports and forest land percentage of the territory, share of the forest product exports of the region in the country’s forest product exports and in the total exports from the region as well as on a comparative assessment of the progressiveness of the forest sector structure in the regions. The presented approach makes it possible to determine the regions of Ukraine where the creation of clusters of the forest sector could be more efficient and stimulate promising directions of their development. There built a cognitive map for studying the state of forestry and logging activities in Ukraine and countries of the world, which, unlike the ones proposed before, is based on the cognitive maps for the analysis of the links of the value chain from cultivation to harvesting of forest resources. The presented map allows constructing a system for assessing the state of the forestry and logging activities in the country. There proposed a cognitive map for the analysis of economic activities and groups of forest products of the country, which, unlike the existing ones, includes a system of interconnected absolute and relative indicators characterizing production and consumption in the relevant markets and their import dependence, allows to determine the trends in the development of procurement and export-import operations with forest products in the country. The essence of concepts “competitiveness of the forest sector” and “forest policy” is specified. The main goal of the forest policy of Ukraine – the provision of economic and social well-being of the population in the favorable environment – is defined. Moreover, there proposed the key principles of forest policy in the country, such as: non-exhausting forest use, sustainable forest management, multifunctional use of forests, preservation and increase of forest biodiversity, adaptation of forests to climate change, which ensures mutual consistency of forest policy components and their overall efficiency.
