welcome
Throughout the world production systems, methods of organizing work and consumption patterns are undergoing changes, which will have long-term effects comparable with the first industrial revolution. This is the result of the development of information and communications
technologies. Digital technologies, in particular, have made it possible to combine transmission of information, sound, text and images in a single high-performance system. For the level of employment in the Community to improve, corporations must achieve global competitiveness
on open and competitive markets. It is our responsibility to provide industry with a favourable environment, to open up clear and reliable prospects for it and to promote its international competitiveness.
The globalization of economies and markets, which involves the intensification of international competition through the emergence of a potentially unique worldwide market for an expanding range of goods, services and factors, brings out the full importance of that responsibility.
We must increasingly think in terms of competitive rather than comparative advantages. Comparative advantages traditionally relate to endowment in factors such as natural resources and are therefore fairly rigid. Competitive advantages are based on more quality factors and
can thus be influenced to a large degree by corporate strategies and by public policies. In such a context, factor mobility and the capacity to combine factors effectively and to organize the social consensus on the share-out of value added are becoming much more important
than the initial factor endowment.
The Community will be able to improve its global competitiveness considerably provided it achieves a substantial recovery in its investment ratio. An economy based on the creation, dissemination and exploitation of knowledge will be one of the dominant features of the 21st
century, and against such a background a number of these competitive factors will play a crucial role in generating a recovery in growth and an increase in employment. Global working relations touching users from all walks of life working together to police support and maintain
the currently overloading systems seems to be the only way out. The next world war will be in cyber space and not on the battlefields of old. Political targets and takeovers is a waste of time and are often demoralizing. |
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