The territorial structure of the national economy reflects the distribution of productive forces in territorial terms. In this sense, economic regions, territorial complexes and territorial-production complexes (TPK) are distinguished in the Republic of Belarus.
Work on territorial zoning in Belarus was carried out already in the 20s. Initially, they were associated with the zoning of agriculture. Thorough research was carried out in the Council for the Study of Productive Forces (SOPS) under the State Planning Committee of the USSR, as well as in research institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR and the State Planning Committee of the BSSR. Now these studies are carried out at the Research Economic Institute of the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Belarus and at the Institute of Economics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
The economic regionalization of the national economy is used as a tool for allocating territorial complexes. In this regard, four economic regions are distinguished in the republic: Central, South-Eastern, North-Eastern and Western [4, p.360]. At the same time, the territory of the republic is divided into three natural and economic regions: Northern, Central and Southern [4, p.370].
Territorial complexes (TC) are complexes of industries and industries on the territory of the economic region. TCs reflect the territorial aspect of the formation of intersectoral complexes. They are formed in accordance with the principles of the theory of economic regionalization.
Belarus is characterized by three types of economic regions, namely:
economic regions within the administrative regions (Minsk and six regions); each region has its own set of branches of specialization, its own level of complexity of development, its own management bodies; intraregional economic regions (subdistricts) (there are 19 of them). Each of them has its own branches of specialization both within the regions and on the scale of the republic. Unlike the regions, the sub-districts have no governing bodies, as they do not perform administrative functions; grassroots administrative economic regions are rural administrative districts (there are 118 of them in Belarus), which can be considered as primary territorial subdivisions in the system of economic zoning.
Production, formed on the territory of individual districts, forms territorial-production complexes (TPK) – as a set of enterprises and facilities of various industries located in a certain territory and interconnected by the use of district-wide natural and economic resources, as well as a common system of settlement.
In the Republic of Belarus, there are three types of territorial-production complexes [1, pp.140-142]:
1. TPK of diversified development (six complexes): Minsk (mechanical engineering); Gomel (forestry and woodworking, food, mechanical engineering); Mogilev (ferrous metallurgy, chemical); Vitebsk (light, building materials, mechanical engineering); Grodno (food, building materials, chemical, glass, forestry and woodworking, light); Bobruisk (chemical and petrochemical, forestry and woodworking, glass and porcelain-faience);
2. Intensively developing TPK (11 complexes): Brest (electric power industry, food, forestry and woodworking-
engineering, light); Baranovichi (light, food, mechanical engineering); Pinsk (light, food, forestry and woodworking); Molodechno (forestry and woodworking, mechanical engineering, food, building materials, powder metallurgy); Lida (mechanical engineering, chemical, glass and porcelain-faience); Orsha (light); Borisov (forestry and woodworking, pulp and paper, food, medicine); Soligorsky (chemical, food, light); Novopolotsk (fuel, electric power, chemical and petrochemical); Mozyr (fuel, forestry and woodworking, food, building materials); Zhlobinskiy (light, building materials, metallurgical, electric power industry);
3. TPK, which are simple groupings of enterprises (two complexes): Glubokoe (food, glass and porcelain-faience, forestry and woodworking); Krichevsky (building materials, light, food).