The EU Regional Competitiveness Index (2022) shows that the Netherlands is the best place for companies to settle and for residents to work and live.
The EU Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI) offers an answer to the following question: Is a region attractive for companies to settle and for residents to live and work?
Researchers concluded that Utrecht (150.9), followed by South Holland (144.1), and the French capital region of Île-de-France (142.8), score the highest when it comes to RCI.
It’s no coincidence that Utrecht and South Holland share the stage, given that both are part of the Randstad – an arc-shaped region which comprises the country’s four biggest cities and houses almost half of the Dutch population.
RCI is based on various indicators such as basic education, innovation, and microeconomic stability, among others. South Holland scored particularly well on infrastructure, market size, and institutions, relating to the quality and efficiency of institutions.
Interestingly, the researchers note that the more competitive a country is, the higher the GDP per capita, the better women perform, and the lower the NEET rate tends to be (a person who is unemployed and not receiving an education or training).
Additionally, these countries tend to have smaller differences between their regions. This is the case with the Netherlands and its industrial cities like Eindhoven, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, compared to smaller cities (or regions), ‘’like Leiden, that still differentiate themselves by having robust, growing and highly specialised markets’’.
