<b>Business News: </b>Surveys show a two-speed Europe in a two-speed world. By Dawn Smith

Posted by AccountingWEB PM | on Mon, 06/03/2006 - 17:03 2348 1 comment

Companies in Northern and Central Europe are generally more cost competitive and optimistic those in the UK, France and Southern Europe, according to a pan-European business survey commissioned by KPMG.

However, competition from lower-cost economies is seen as a big threat to business across Europe - an issue thrown into sharp relief by a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which predicts that established economies in the West will be overtaken by emerging markets such as China and India by 2050.

The KPMG survey found that companies in the UK, France and Southern Europe think it will be to

Continued...

2050? nah 2020

dahowlett | Wed, 08/03/2006 - 12:37 | Permalink

I love it when big firms do 'surveys.' All they have to do is ask they're compadres in different countries what the deal is and they'd know in a trice. But they'd require a KM solution to aggregate that.

But to the 2050 thing - no way. The crunch is happening right now. Ray Lane was in India a couple of weeks ago - punting the virtues of VC funding from the US. Never came to EU.

China is the engineeering powerhouse for the 21st century - already happening - Wal-Mart building 400+ stores and created $30 billion negative trade balance with the US mothership. Seen the video 'Wal-Mart is bad for US business?' A real eye opener.

It didn't take a survey to figure any of that out! Just some nifty finger work around the Internet.

The most important thing here is that EU gets squeezed between innovation in the US and engineering in Asia.

The only way this changes is if the EU appoints someone with a clear understanding of the ways in which EU can excel and works to foster excellence. That will come from technology. Think Nordic countries. But...VC's don't want to invest in EU - too much regulation, too many barriers to doing business. Restrictive labour laws in certain states are frequently cited. So far, the EU has failed to convince.

Disclosure: I've lived in France and Spain the last 8+ years. I have business links to Mumbai and the US.