ON THE ISSUE OF INCREASING COMPETITIVENESS OF GEORGIAN REGIONS

Abstract

  Competitiveness is the central mechanism of market sys- tem, it is its locomotive. In the regions of post-Soviet coun- tries, strict market demands are gradually being perceived as real and the perspective of long-term usage of an existed re- source potential is being determined. However, post-socialist transformations and the rapid rates of globalization process have made the regions of particular importance. Our goal was to meet the basic conditions for identifying the compet- itiveness of Georgian regions and to present the prospect of its improvement.
  The necessity of increasing the region’s competitiveness is primarily due to the generally recognized shortcomings and deformities of market economy functioning, as well as to the specificities of particular country’s economic system, produc- tion development, natural-climatic, ethnographic and other types of  features. That is why, at a time of solving economic, social, and other important tasks, in modern conditions, determining the competitiveness of regions is of the utmost importance.
  The research of the problems of regional economics has become actual in Georgia since it gained the independence. The present work is based on studies of Georgian and foreign authors dedicated to regional competitiveness and their evaluation.
  Regional competitiveness, in its essence, is the compet- itiveness of a territorial unit, which has defined political and economic boundaries and fixes this difference compared to the  competitiveness of  different organizational structures. The competitiveness of the region shows the unity of rela- tions connected to the economic development of the region with respect to other regions.
  We consider that Increasing the competitiveness of the regions and overcoming inequality existed in the regions should become the main target of the country’s economic policy.