EUの国際競争力と産業政策

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The EU's industrial competitiveness, measured by its export share of world trade, declined during the course of the 1970s and the early 1980s. However, since the mid-1980s, it has stabilized and even recovered, although only slightly. The aim of this paper is to examine whether European competitiveness will again deteriorate or continue to improve. Recent detailed data show that European industry is maintaining its competitiveness, especially in the traditional and labour-intensive sectors. However, its capital-intensive and R&D-oriented sectors are less competitive than their Japanese and U. S. counterparts. This implies that possible recovery in emerging markets and progress in trade liberalization under the WTO could again undermine European competitiveness in the future. Expensive basic services, insufficient R&D expenditure, expensive labour costs, and less efficient capital markets are pointed to as being the main factors for this vulnerability of European industry. Since its establishment, the EU has introduced various industrial policies to strengthen its international competitiveness. In its early stages, most of these were vertical policies, picking up specific sectors and supporting them by, for example, subsidies or protection from imports. In spite of these policies, its competitiveness weakened, as stated earlier. Since the mid-1980s, therefore, European industrial policies have changed to being of a horizontal nature, making the economic environment more business-oriented, one example being the construction and the extension of information networks. Furthermore, the introduction of a new currency, the "euro", is predicted to make an important contribution to strengthening the EU's competitiveness, due to greater price transparency. In other words, people will be able to compare the prices of goods and services more easily by using the common currency. This means that the European business climate could become more competitive. Against such an economic circumstance, European enterprises have been making various efforts, such as investments in order to produce more-sophisticated goods, or shifting their production sites to reduce labour costs. In addition, in order to satisfy the Maastricht criteria on the budgetary balance, most EU member states have privatized their agencies. As a result, public utility charges, including basic service prices, have declined significantly. We can conclude, therefore, that most of the factors behind European weakness will be reduced significantly during the course of the establishment of EMU and, consequently, the EU will be able to maintain its international competitiveness in the coming decade.
神戸大学の論文
2000-03-10

EUの国際競争力と産業政策

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