0.1 Regions and clusters  (Page 2/15)

Much of the Community level action focuses on issues such as reform of state aid, removal of obstacles to physical, labour and academic mobility and completion of an agreement in the ongoing World Trade Organisation negotiations. However, as described in Chapter 2, this follows through down to the national and regional levels, including strategy for Structural Funds interventions.

Considering the intentions of the European Union, how does it currently perform in terms of the knowledge-based economy? Statistics compiled by EUROSTAT show that over 40% of EU employment is in knowledge-based industries with about half of this in manufacturing and market services (i.e., not Health or Education), as shown in [link] .

The importance of the Knowledge Economy is continually growing in the UK. Current trends would see manufacturing and agriculture account for only 15% of UK output by the end of the decade as the service sector continues to grow (Leadbeater 1999). These trends are reflected in the growth of employment in knowledge-based industries since the mid-80s shown in [link] .

However, this overall growth of the Knowledge Economy sits above a wide variance in performance amongst UK regions that is acknowledged by both Government (Edmonds 2000 and DTI 2001) and academic observers (Hughes 1999, Cooke 2002, Clement 2004 and K Group 2006).

Knowledge economy - welsh and regional context

Over recent years there has been a restructuring of the Welsh economy in the face of global challenges that have squeezed traditional sectors, in particular manufacturing. In this regard, the Welsh Assembly Government is trying to support the development of the knowledge-based economy. This ambition, reflecting the pillars of the knowledge economy is captured in the Wales Spatial Plan (WAG 2004c):

“ We need an innovative, high value economy for Wales which utilises and develops the skills and knowledge of our people: an economy which both creates wealth and allows that prosperity to be spread throughout Wales: an economy which adds to the quality of people’s lives as well as their living and working environments. ”

Great differences in prosperity can be noted within the regions of Wales (Morgan 2001). This is demonstrated by [link] presenting the disparity between East Wales, and West Wales and the Valleys (K GROUP 2006).

Wales Spatial Plan, Swansea Bay, Waterfront and Western Valleys Using a definition developed from the OECD sectoral description of the knowledge economy (OECD 1996), De Laurentis and Cooke (2003) present the regions of West Wales and the Valleys against other key European regions (in [link] ).