Industrial competitiveness is the key to ensure sustainable economic recovery

Šampióny produktivity v EU se staly Irsko, Nizozemsko, Rakousko, Finsko, Lucembursko, Belgie, Švédsko a Německo. Česko patří mezi státy s produktivitou pod průměrem EU.

Champions of the productivity became Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden and Germany, the Czech Republic is among countries with productivity below the EU average.

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The European Commission presented on 14 October its Communication "Industrial policy: Reinforcing competitiveness", which looks specifically at the industrial competitiveness performance of the Member States.

The EU economic recovery has been relatively slow and remains fragile. This is reflected in the worsening sentiment across the European economy. Moreover, there are clear downside risks stemming from financial markets, rising energy and raw materials prices, and the need for budgetary consolidation. However, EU industry is in good shape and has the potential to push the European economy back to growth.

There are considerable differences among Member States: the average labour productivity in manufacturing ranges from almost 125 % of gross value added per person employed in Ireland to below 20 % in Bulgaria. The share of innovating companies varies from 80 % in Germany to 25 % in Latvia. The business-friendliness of regulation gets highest scores in Finland whereas Italy is in last position. Faced with this scenario today’s communication encourages Member States to rapidly implement policies to converge to competitive levels coherent with participation in the euro and the Internal Market.

EC Communication „Industrial Policy: Reinforcing Competitiveness“ [pdf 65 kB]

Report "Member States competitiveness performance and policies 2011" [pdf 2,66 MB]

European Competitiveness Report 2011 – part 1 [pdf 1,89 MB]

European Competitiveness Report 2011 – part 2 [pdf 2,41 MB]

More information here.

Vladimíra Drbalová
International Organisations and EU Affairs