BUSINESS BRIEF
THE chief economist of Sweden's Employers Confederation is warning EU leaders gathering in Stockholm to look elsewhere for a role model if they want Europe to become the most competitive economy in the world.
As the Union prepares to step up 'benchmarking' and efforts to promote 'best practice' as a way to bolster its bid to steal the US mantle as the world's most competitive economy by 2010, economist Jan Herin says it should not follow Sweden's example.
The Scandinavian country shared top billing in the world's growth league with Japan up to the early 1970s. But Herin says too many rules, high taxes, growth in the public sector that "virtually exploded" in the 1970s and 80s", and an overly-generous social security system all combined to knock Sweden down from the fourth to the sixteenth richest country in the world per capita.
Europe's engineering industry will next week step up the campaign for action against the makers of shoddy counterfeit products which are putting customers' lives at risk.
Adrian Harris, secretary general of Orgalime, the lobby group for the industry representing 100,000 firms with a combined annual turnover of more than 1,000 billion euro said counterfeiting of goods from electric kettle cut-off devices to valves and insulated tools is damaging the reputation of EU industry in overseas markets.
He said firms want Commission officials, and representatives from China – one of the key perpetrators of illegal copying – to discuss the problem at a Brussels conference next week.
The European Commission cleared US investment bank Goldman Sachs Group's purchase of a 33 per cent stake in Messer Griesheim, part of Franco-German life sciences firm Aventis.
The Commission also approved British Telecom's purchase of Norwegian firm Telenor's share in Irish mobile phone operator Esat Digifone.
German energy utility RWE's proposed acquisition of Spanish power business Hidroelectrica del Cantabrico has received regulatory clearance.
Competition chief Mario Monti will visit Washington from 29-30 March for talks on General Electric's planned merger with Honeywell. The European Commission is thought to have more concerns about the deal than its US counterpart, the Department of Justice.
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