REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS AND REGIONAL CONVERGENCE – TOGETHER TOWARDS THE SUCCESS OF DEVELOPMENT

This paper comes to describe the relation between two representative concepts within the wide literature in the field of regional development and cooperation. As many of concepts that are used in our times, the regional competitiveness and the regional convergence are two notions that have a transdisciplinary feature, a phenomenon that emphasizes the fact that the approaches in the literature are different and are the results of the researches in different field, though approaching the same two aspects. Regional competitiveness regards the ability of one region to compete and develop itself through the products and services it produces and provides, which are the ultimate result of the cooperation between the companies, institutions, socio-political policies within that region, while maintaining or developing the living standards of its population. On the other hand, regional convergence is the result of a series of policies and decisions made by a superior institution, that are designed to reduce the differences between the development level between the economic regions within a certain area.