Five of Greece’s regions among EU’s least competitive
Five Greek regions are listed in the bottom 10 of the European Union’s Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI), which is published every three years and is based on the approach of World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.
These regions are the Ionian Islands, Western Greece, the Peloponnese, Central Greece, and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace.
Along with three regions in Romania, one in Bulgaria and one in France, they are the 10 least competitive among the EU’s 263 regions.
Forty-seven regions across eight EU member-states have been studied and characterized as “low-growth regions,” with their gross domestic product standing below 50 percent of the bloc’s average.
These regions are home to 83 million people – one in six EU citizens – and are mostly concentrated in Southern Europe.
Ten of them are in Greece: Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Central Macedonia, Western Macedonia and Epirus, Thessaly, the Ionian Islands, Western Greece, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, the Northern Aegean, and Crete.
