The economic competitiveness of West Region will grow through smart specialization

Friday, September 6, 2013, the West Regional Development Agency (West RDA) and the World Bank organized the closing conference of the project "Services for competitiveness and smart specialization in West Region". The event took place at the City Business Centre starting 11.00.

The event was attended by representatives of private companies, companies involved in the elaboration of the report, representatives of local government and public institutions.

The conference was opened by Mr. Sorin Maxim, West RDA Director General and Ms. Arabela Aprahamian, Senior Private Sector Development Specialist World Bank. Within the event, Mr. Sorin Maxim presented the current state of the Regional Development Plan 2014 - 2020 elaboration, and Mrs. Mariana IOOTY, economist at the World Bank and Mrs. Delia Ionic, consultant, presented the final report and its conclusions, policy recommendations and interventions in West Region.

"Services for competitiveness and smart specialization in the West Region", funded under the Technical Assistance Operational Programme 2007 - 2013, was a pilot project in Romania and included the region's economic geography assessment,  territory evaluation, evaluation of foreign trade, the infrastructure to facilitate trade, transport and logistics, as well as an analysis of the competitiveness of companies in the region.

Within this project, implemented during September 2012 - September 2013, the team of technical experts of the World Bank conducted five studies which aimed to achieve a detailed evaluation on the competitiveness of the economic sectors in West Region.

These are:

• Evaluation of the results of foreign trade;
• Territorial Evaluation: profile, performance and growth vectors in the West Region;
• Assessment of economic geography: spatial development challenges in the West Region;
• Infrastructure to facilitate trade, transport and logistics: the main challenges and opportunities;
• The competitiveness of firms in the West Region: diagnostic challenges and opportunities.

A sixth study was focused on case studies in the sectors with potential for smart specialization.

Based on these six analysis, the final report contains a series of policies and interventions to increase the potential of the economic sectors, taking into account the base knowledge - Research, Development and Innovation - in the region.

The 6 analysis reports on specific topics and the final report can be consulted here...

The analysis conducted by the World Bank and the conclusions and recommendations resulted, will form the basis on which to build "smart specialization" of West Region and will determine the regional development planning, innovation strategy of the region, and - most importantly - allocation of EU funds for the research - development - innovation for the West Region in the next programming period - 2014-2020.