New Report Points Way for Further Reform to Boost Europe’s Competitiveness

- More reform needed to address Europe’s competitiveness deficit and divide, especially in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, mobilizing talent and improving market efficiency
- Best practice case studies identified, along with five key enablers, that can help Europe rebuild its competitiveness while preserving its core values of partnership and social inclusion
- Download the full report here: http://wef.ch/rebuildingeurope13

Davos-Klosters, Switzerland – Europe’s competitiveness deficit, and its competitiveness divide between southern and eastern Europe and their neighbours to the north, is the root cause of stagnating or declining growth and rising unemployment or fiscal instability in the region, finds a new report, Re-Building Europe’s Competitiveness, published today by the World Economic Forum.

The report identifies three core areas – innovation and entrepreneurship, mobilizing talent, and product and service market efficiency – where Europe’s competitiveness deficit is most pronounced. It also concludes that the current fast pace of reform embarked upon by some European nations to boost labour market flexibility, encourage competition in products and services and boost innovation and entrepreneurship, while welcome, requires further action if it is to return Europe to a path of sustained prosperity.

To help Europe achieve this outcome, the report presents and discusses a number of competitiveness practices that some European countries have adopted successfully in the past, and identifies five success factors that Europe’s political, business and civil society leaders should prioritize when implementing and scaling up reforms. These are:

- Strong collaboration across stakeholders
- Policy consistency
- Political leadership
- Sense of urgency
- A strong and clear communication plan

The report, which contributes to the ongoing efforts of the World Economic Forum to support Europe in addressing its current economic and social challenges, was drafted in cooperation with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. By drawing on measures already undertaken successfully by European nations, the report ultimately finds that, should Europe’s reform programme continue to be properly implemented and scaled up, competitiveness can be restored, with the region’s core values of partnership and social inclusion preserved.

”We hope that this report will provide policy-makers, business and civil society leaders with an important tool in adopting measures needed to rebuild Europe’s competitiveness and inspire a strategic dialogue between stakeholders,” said Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum.

“Europe is home to a range of world-class businesses that have continuously shown they are able to adapt to new challenges. Targeted reforms in innovation and entrepreneurship, labour markets, product and service markets, together with fiscal consolidation, can rebuild Europe’s competitiveness,” said Martin Wittig, Chief Executive Officer of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

The co-chairs of Annual Meeting 2013 are: Frederico Curado, President and Chief Executive Officer, EMBRAER, Brazil; Muhtar A. Kent, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, USA; Huguette Labelle, Chair, Transparency International, Germany; Global Agenda Council on Responsible Mineral Resources Management; Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Dow Chemical Company, USA; Atsutoshi Nishida, Chairman of the Board, Toshiba Corporation, Japan; and Axel A. Weber, Chairman of the Board of Directors, UBS, Switzerland

Notes to Editors

More information about the Annual Meeting 2013 is available at http://wef.ch/davos2013
View the best photographs from the Annual Meeting on Flickr at http://wef.ch/davos13pix
Free media access to the Forum press photo archive Swiss-Image at http://wef.ch/pics
Watch live webcasts of sessions at http://wef.ch/live and on demand at http://wef.ch/davos13video
Watch opinions and analysis of key sessions at http://wef.ch/AM13insights
Watch the sessions on demand on YouTube at http://wef.ch/youtube or http://wef.ch/youku
Become a fan of the Forum on Facebook at http://wef.ch/facebook
Read the summaries of sessions at http://wef.ch/davos13sessions
Follow the Forum on Twitter at http://wef.ch/twitter and http://wef.ch/livetweet (hashtag #WEF)
Read the Forum:Blog at http://wef.ch/blog
Follow the Forum on Google+ at http://wef.ch/gplus
The Forum Media App is available here http://wef.ch/publicapps