Southeast ranked among top ICT regions in Europe

Southern and eastern Ireland is one the most competitive European regions for information technology and computer manufacturing, according to a new study.

The study, by academics from Britain's Sheffield University and George Washington University in the United States, ranked the region eighth of 20 European areas and said it was "fast moving up the rankings".

It noted the importance of the computer industry for the Celtic Tiger and how IT giants Dell, IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard all now have significant operations in and around Dublin.

The survey uses a competitiveness index measuring investment and employment in research and development, and numbers of patent applications.

In the overall regional competitiveness division, the southern and eastern region ranked 29th out of 118 regions, with Northern Ireland ranked 64th and the Border, midlands and western region only 74th.

Finland as a country and Brussels as a region were found to be the most competitive in Europe.

The study also looks at transport infrastructure and accessibility measured by motorway, vehicle and rail capacities, air freight and passenger movements, as well as labour productivity, gross domestic product per capita, earnings and unemployment rates.

"Not only is there the obvious divide in competitiveness between old and new Europe, but there is the increasing dependence of Europe on its urban and city locations as the source of its competitiveness," the biannual report's co-author professor Robert Huggins said.

"On top of this, we are seeing the continued erosion in the regional competitiveness of locations in some of Europe's major economies, especially Germany," he said.

Brussels topped the regional ranking as one of the wealthiest cities in Europe in terms of GDP per capita. "The unparalleled economic well-being of the region is, in part, a result of the unique level of public sector investment, being the home of the European Commission," the study said.

"However ... the region is also a dynamic, knowledge-intensive hub, both for Belgium and for Europe."

The Finnish region of greater Helsinki, Uusimaa, which includes the headquarters of the world's biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia, took second place among the 118 European regions in the ranking.

"The region ... may be small in size ... but contributes a huge amount to the competitive dynamism of the Finnish economy, not to mention accounting for around 35 percent of the country's gross national product," the study said.

"And while Brussels dominates in terms of wealth and accessibility, it is Uusimaa that perhaps epitomises the creative, "knowledge intensive" development that has proved to be such a success in many parts of northeastern Europe, and is fast being considered the model to follow around the world." Paris came third in the region ranking with Stockholm a close fourth.

The 10 least competitive regions were from Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. Only two regions from the EU's 10 new member states - Prague and Bratislava - made it to the top 10.

The next most competitive areas among the new EU members were the Hungarian Kozep-Magyarorszag in 47th place and Slovenia - which due to its small size was counted as a region - in 76th place.

Among countries, Finland took first place, narrowly beating Luxembourg and ahead of Switzerland and Norway. The three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as well as Poland came last in the country score.

Additional reporting by Reuters