Regional competitiveness: Latin America and the Caribbean

Regional Competitiveness can be defined as the region's potential in the long run enforce economically in competition with other regions while maintaining social cohesion and environmental sustainability. This ability is determined by many factors, such as innovation, technological progress, investment attractiveness, skills of the labor force, transportation infrastructure and quality of transport services, public sector efficiency and public security. These factors influence the resulting economic, social and environmental situation of the region. The authors have compared the competitiveness of Latin America and the Caribbean states. Indicators of GDP, unemployment rate, share of high-educated employees, the rate of migration, income, population, unemployment, delinquency, CO2 emissions were used for the evaluation. For the purposes of interpretation and due to imperfect data bases, small countries to 3 million are earmarked specifically together with the island states in the Antile states. Among the countries over 3 million inhabitants (the area of South America and Mexico) Mexico dominates, followed by Chile and Argentina. On the contrary, as the least competitive Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay were evaluated. Mexico's dominance is mainly due to its position in the economic dimension. Mexico and Chile, by contrast, are better in environmental terms. The specific situation is in Bolivia, which reaches above the average in the social field (e.g. in the tertiary education) but lags in the economic sphere. Among the countries over 3 million inhabitants (the area of Central America) Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras show the best results. These countries have significant differences, and compared to countries located in the index below clearly have higher scores in the social field. Among the countries under 3 million inhabitants has the best positions St. Kitts and Nevis, followed by Cuba and the Bahamas. The problematic acquisition and data validation must be mentioned in the context of evaluation of these countries. The authors focused on selected factors of competitiveness rated best and worst of Latin American countries in the next section analysis. In this context, authors considered the economic liberalization, the role of technology in the economy, the position in international trade, education system, labor market and healthcare conditions, environment and transport infrastructure

The competitiveness of EU regions

The competitiveness of EU regions This paper results from the project financed by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GA ÈR). The project was carried out by the research team consisting of both The Centre of Regional and Administrative Studies and The Regional Studies Department's members in 2009 -2011. The introductory part of the paper is focused on the theoretical background with a special emphasis on the concept definition and determination of factors of the regional competitiveness. The concept of competitiveness is relatively new in the economics and the economic geography. In fact, there are no general definitions, the concept is mostly related to a specific issue. Micro-oriented definitions consider the competitiveness as a success in selling products or services on open markets. The macro-economic view is much more variable. It is often associated with an economic development of a sustainable character. The social and environmental aspect is also closely observed as well as the impact of the regional economic growth on other regions, in the sense of whether or not the economic growth is realized at the expense of other regions. The following part of the paper, based on the methodology and index defined for this purpose, assesses the competitiveness of EU regions on the NUTS II level. The regional competitiveness index was compiled on the basis of available Eurostat data. Next part of the paper presents the key factors of the regional competitiveness. Factors are classified as universal and specific. Concerning universal factors, regions with a high level of competitiveness mostly have an important economic centre; these are often metropolitan regions of member states (London, Stockholm, Paris, Prague) with a significant share of services and existence of both public and private decision-making headquarters. In non-metropolitan regions with a high level of competitiveness, there is an economic centre- city with a share of services, R&D and innovation sector. Competitive regions (or their centres) are mostly well connected with the transport infrastructure, especially TEN-T, national highways and international airports. Such regions are important air, rail, road or water transport junctions. One of the key aspects of the regional competitiveness is the concentration of scientific, R&D and innovative institutions often linked to tertiary educational institutions. In general, the educational structure with a high proportion of tertiary or higher secondary educated population (corresponding to the Czech system of secondary education with the school-leaving examination-maturita) is another aspect of a competitive region. The institutional conditions also determine the regional competitiveness and development. Specific factors of the regional competitiveness are the tourism potential, natural sources and the technical infrastructure

Industrial zones – an effective tool of regional development support in transitive economy? Case study: The Czech Republic

Investment incentives as well as promotion of industrial zones become one of the most debated issue for experts, especially in connection with the effect of foreign direct investments on economies at both national and regional levels. The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of promotion of industrial zones as the key tool of regional development support in the framework of economic conditions in the Czech Republic. The assessment is focused on industrial zones support which was provided by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the Czech Republic or, more precisely, the CzechInvest agency in the framework of the Programme on Industrial Zones Development Support, Programme on Business Zones and Infrastructure Support and the Investment Incentives System. This paper's main source is the data set obtained in empirical research carried out by authors throughout industrial zones across the Czech Republic. Another important source was the accomplished analysis of economic management of all economic subjects observed in the supported industrial zones mentioned above. The research shows that firms in industrial zones have positive effects on the regional labor market, that companies in industrial zones contribute to technological development through restructuring of industry and affect SMEs positively, that industrial zones improve the business image of the region. The negative effect on the environment is low and the impact of industrial zones on social cohesion may be considered as neutral. Firms contribute to efficient use of available resources, creating greater added value. In the context of economic development, it is also possible to evaluate positively stable export growth in its absolute value; wages of workers in industrial zones may be assessed as above average as firms try to get quality workforce. The contribution of observed companies (or industrial zones) to the total number of jobs created in R&D is very limited. Industrial zones may be considered as significant accelerators of secondary sector development and, to a relatively lesser extent, also on the Quaternary and Quinternary. To assess the impact of the state support in industrial zones on the state budget, a complex function has been compiled to map specific indicators. The model has been applied in three variants: 'pessimistic', 'medium' and 'optimistic' and has implemented data from the period of 2006 to 2009