The 28 most competitive regions in Europe

At a time when the EU policy of territorial cohesion is in the process of being redefined, Commerce International is once again publishing its competitiveness ranking for the regions of Europe. Inspired by The Regional Competitive Atlas published by EUROCHAMBRES in 2007 and 2008, this latest report focuses on a selection of EU NUTS-2 regions that obtained the best results or progress, according to five in-dispensable criteria for business growth.
Carried out by our own journalists for the very first time, this ranking offers a glimpse of the situation in different European regions in terms of economic development, but also highlights the areas that have progressed the most – those in which the cohesion policy or political efforts have made for excellent results. GDP growth rate, employment rate, education, innovation and transportation are the criteria that were used to produce this report. For each one, the five regions with the best figures have been recognised. As two of these regions made the cut for two of the criteria, the ranking then covers 28 exceptional regions. These indicators are among those used in the cohesion policy’s regional evaluation. Unfortunately, data to judge the internationalisation of European regions is lacking, as such data is only available on a national level. Finally, in the future, Commerce International will attempt to take into account data on the development of cleaner energies, natural resources and tourism. The European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Pawel Samecki, has mentioned these latter two criteria as the Union prepares to define the new policy for territorial cohesion inspired by the Treaty of Lisbon.  

Economic context and GDP
The first indicator focuses on the econo-mic context of the regions, taking into account per capita GDP growth rate for 2006 – the latest data partially available from Eurostat. Here, the important disparities between different areas of Europe must be kept in mind. In 2005, the average growth rate of the 27 EU countries was 1.9%. If in absolute value, the countries that entered the EU most recently are ranked the lowest in terms of per capita GDP, they are gradually making up for the gap with the helps of much higher annual growth rates. In this way, five regions of the Czech Republic moved to the head of our rankings this year. Two of them recorded a 7.3% growth rate in 2006, proof that the cohesion policy is in good health and must be continued beyond the period of 2007-2013. Given its year of reference, this report provides no glimpse into the consequences of the financial crisis.

Progress in employment and education
The criterion of employment was evaluated by calculating the percentage progress of the rate of employment in 2008, according to Eurostat. As for the education indicator, it measures the percentage progression of the education level (ISCED 5-6) of 25-64 years olds in 2008 (Eurostat). The Spanish city of Ceuta earned a spot in the rankings for both of these criteria. Despite its marginal structure and location, Ceuta is without a doubt a good example of the successful application of the policy of cohesion. For the period of 2007-2013, the autonomous city will receive 45.3 million euros from the ERDF for its regional economic and sustainable development programmes, and 17.6 million euros from the ESF to encourage employment creation.

Innovation
As the principal motor for growth and competitiveness, innovation is a difficult concept to evaluate. R&D dynamism and the widespread use of information and communications technologies are indicators that allow for an idea of business life in a given region. For this ranking, in the absence of data on patent registration, we looked instead to the percentage proportion of human resources employed in sciences and technologies out of the active population, 2007 being the latest year of reference from Eurostat. The regions – notably capital regions – with a high concentration of innovative businesses or clusters climbed to the top of the rankings. The region of Prague notably earned a spot in this ranking, dominated by the oldest EU members.

Transportation
By air or by sea, merchandise transit hubs are absolutely vital to regional economic development in Europe and beyond. Maritime freight (volume in thousand of tonnes in 2008 – Eurostat) remains a major mode of transportation. Northern Europe’s sea route, the “Northern Range”, which runs from Le Havre (France) to Hamburg (Germany), represent an axis of dense port infrastructure. While the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp are the biggest in Europe, the growing dynamism of Mediterranean port and logistics zones cannot be ignored.  The PACA Region and Andalusia are already thinking forward to the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean free-trade zone. Airfreight (volume in thousands of tonnes in 2006 – Eurostat) is still dependent on investments made by cargo and express professionals. Airport competitiveness is above all linked to their ability to increase their expansion potential.