The authors discuss the necessity of a scientifically grounded approach to the identification of the regional economy’s needs in import substitution products. The following peculiarities of the import substitution process have been identified: two-fold direction and mid-term nature, pre-determining research types necessary for the economic needs identification. The authors have proposed a method based on the identification of two things, namely: the existing amount of the effective demand on import products and stable trends in the demand development which will enable to distinguish the critical amounts of the demand on import. Based on the evidence from Krasnoyarsk region, the approbation results of the first stage of the method have been presented: the evaluations of the actual degree of the regional economy’s dependence on import.