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Romania's North West ranks highest in SEE in top 20 European regions index
Romanian North-West region was ranked fifth among the best performing European cities and regions in 2016 - highest in Southeast Europe, US-based think-tank Milken Institute said on Monday quoted by seenews.com.
The high-tech services sector's rapid growth as well as the job growth in the region over the past five years contributed to the high overall ranking of the Romanian North-West, Milken Institute said in its 2016 Best-Performing Cities (BPC) Europe index report.
BPC Europe uses outcomes-based five and one-year metrics including job creation, wage gains, manufacturing, and skilled service industry concentration to evaluate the relative performance of European regions.
"The Tetapolis Science Park in the region’s largest city, Cluj, was recently established to serve as an incubator for information technology firms. This effort to expand the small high-tech sector has been funded in part by the EU," Milken added.
Bulgaria's South West region which includes the capital Sofia, was ranked tenth among 20 large regions and cities listed in the report.
"The region has outpaced all other large European regions in wage growth on both our one-year and five-year measures (2008-2013)," the think tank added.
Bulgaria's South West lagged behind other regions for employment growth during the five-year period between 2011 and 2016. However, by the end of that period progress was robust, with employment growing at 1.75%. The region is an attractive outsourcing location, thanks in part to high-speed Internet access, competitive wages, and comprehensive language education.
The Romanian capital Bucharest ranked 16th. It has the highest concentration of high-tech services among the large cities thanks to strong and growing professional services and information and communications sectors, Milken said.
London topped the best performing regions/cities index, followed by Stockholm.