The concept of “economic growth” is usually used to describe the situation in the world’s wealthiest economies (i.e., those with the highest levels of gross domestic product per capita).

To describe the situation in other countries, where per capita gross domestic product is much lower and therefore living standards are much lower, the concept of economic development is more commonly used.

Economic development is a combination of economic growth and qualitative changes in the conditions and organization of a country’s economic life.

The reason why economic science has introduced the term “development” to describe the processes in the less wealthy countries of the world is that these countries have to solve somewhat different problems in the period of growth than the richest countries in the world.

As a rule, these tasks are as follows:

• The creation of industry (industrialization);
• development of cities and the resettlement of a large part of the rural population (urbanization);
• improving the cultural and educational level of the population;
• creation of economic infrastructure (construction of transport facilities, laying of communication networks, construction of roads and ports, gasification, electrification, etc.)
• development of the country’s economic mechanisms;
• formation of a well-educated and wealthy middle class of entrepreneurs;
• ensuring a well-functioning system of legal protection for business (first of all, ensuring the binding nature of economic contracts and the inevitability of strict punishment for their violation).

In other words, the essence of economic development consists in modernization of all aspects of the country’s economic life, i.e. in adopting the most perfect ways of organizing production and business, developed in the most developed countries of the world, on our soil.