Assignment on Competitiveness

Narmeen Mansoor MBA Roll No# 11 Competitiveness is an issue which has gained considerable importance in recent times, it can be defined as, the ability to produce goods and services which meet the test of international markets, while at the same time maintaining high and sustainable levels of income or, more generally, the ability of (regions) to generate, while being exposed to external competition, relatively high income and employment levels (Comission, 1999). The issue of competitiveness has to be faced usually at two broad levels global level and domestic level. Global competitiveness encompasses the forces of globalization, liberalization and information and communication technologies (ICT) have fundamentally changed the rules and nature of global trade and competition) and at domestic level (Wee, 2003)

Competiveness can be broadly categorized into two broad categories national competitiveness and regional competitiveness. National competitiveness can be defined as our ability to produce goods and services that meet the test of international competition while our citizen s enjoy a standard of living that is both rising and sustainable on the other hand, regional competitiveness is based on the idea that there are certain common characteristic in every region that affect the competitive abilities of the firm (Gardiner, Martin, & Tyler, 2004).

The Global Competitiveness Report (2010) propose 12 pillars of competitiveness that are: Institutions, Infrastructure, Macroeconomic stability, Health and primary education, Higher education and training, Goods market efficiency, Labor market efficiency, Financial market sophistication, Technological readiness, Market size, Business sophistication and Innovation.

Competitive firms are today s need and orgaizations struggle hard to achieve this but the fact can also not be ignored that it poses three real challenges. First, in order to enhance

competitiveness firms can waste precious resources to achieve their goal. Second, hunger for competitiveness can lead to issues like protectioinism and trade wars. Third, it is seen to produce adverse affects on ecnomic policy making (Krugman, n.d).

Today nations are at war to gain more and more resources and to achieve competiveness and success of one brings a natural failure for another, so many critics blame competitive as attention diverter and cause of economic (Baldwin, 1995).

References
Baldwin, R. E. (1995). The Problem with Competitiveness. Graduate Institute of International Studies . Comission, E. (1999). Sixth Periodic Report on the Social and Economic Situation of Regions in the EU. Brussels: European Commission. Gardiner, B., Martin, R., & Tyler, P. (2004). Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Growth across the European Regions. Regional Studies Association . Krugman, P. (n.d). Competitiveneaa: A Dangerous Obsession. Martin, X. S.-i. (2010). The Global Competitiveness Report. World Ecnomic Forum. Wee, D. D. (2003). Vision 2020 And Enhancing Competitivness. (28).