Competitiveness of the Planning Regions in Latvia

There are many qualitative changes in the global economy related with globalization, unbalanced development of countries, tightening of competitiveness struggle among different countries, regions and companies. Since Latvia have joined EU and plays more significant role in international area, more attention is paid to competitiveness of Latvia and its regions. The evaluation of regional competitiveness is difficult, because there is no one generally accepted definition of competitiveness at regional level. Different interpretations of competitiveness depend on the way how to achieve the certain level of prosperity. It is not possible to discuss fully about regional competitiveness, its real position and future perspectives using only traditional macroeconomic indicators. For that reason various extra synthetic indicators are used, that are calculated by different international organizations. The system of indicators for evaluating the Latvia’s regions competitiveness was worked out. It contains the main and outside factors that have an effect on competitiveness. The most competitive region of Latvia is Riga region, which has the highest index of competitiveness. The less competitive region is Latgale in the East of Latvia, which shows the lowest values almost in all positions in the model of competitiveness. Great differences between region’s development is a very topical problem for further development of Latvia