The article deals with problems connected with instruments applied in activity of the local authorities. This problems is especially important in the present and future conditions of economic activity. In accordance with principles of the economic reform and legal regulations, the local authorities have been recognized as an autonomous economic eutity equipped with the right to make independent decisions, especially basing on its own incomcs. The people’s councils and their organs are to operate in the economic sphere following rules resembling principles of the functioning of enterprises. This calls for a radical change in mechanisms and ways o£ activity of the local authorities. The chengé should encompass, first of all, the process of management of the entire development of their territory based on methods of indirect (parametric) influence on institutions, economic units und households. That is a very complex problem since both experience and tested solutions are absent here. The article is an attempt to outline systemic solutions in the sphere of instruments of the policy pursued by the local authorities. More detailed issues should be analyzed more comprehensively in the future.