High tech sector in Europe
The globalisation of the world economy means that the “old” economies are met with increased competition from low cost countries. One strategy for meeting this competition is to increase the knowledge content within production of goods and services in order to compete to a greater extent with knowledge instead of price. The OECD has focused on a sample of industries of special interest in order to analyse this development. These industries are classified as “high-tech”. These are industries with high technological production of goods and services, with an emphasis on the production of pharmaceuticals, telecommunications technology and aircraft. As for the service sector, R&D and IT/telecommunications are important services. Calling these industries “high tech” is somewhat misleading, as this concerns knowledge-oriented industries that in part create value in themselves, but also produce services that strengthen other kinds of business. But because the concept “high tech” is a standard in the OECD it is also used in this report.
- High tech service sector in 20 leading EU-15 regions, 2007.
Source: Eurostat. Calculations by Region Skåne. Footnote: 208 regions (Nuts 2 level). Information missing: 45 regions.<br />
- The high tech service sector in EU15, 2007
Source: Eurostat, Statistics Denmark and Statistics Sweden. Map: Region Skåne.
The EU also regards a large percentage of employees in the high tech sector as an important factor for promoting competition and as being significant for reaching the goals of the Lisbon Strategy. The Öresund region has no distinguished position regarding the high and medium technology manufacturing industries compared to other NUTS 2 regions in the EU-15 area (NUTS is the regional division of the EU. Most of Eurostat’s regional statistics are reported at the NUTS 2 level). This industry is concentrated in south western Germany and northern Italy as well as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The Öresund region, together with the greater Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki regions instead have their positions of strength in the high tech service sector, with industries like postal service and telecommunications, data processing and research and development. Of the EU-15, the Öresund region is in tenth place among the 163 regions for which information is available, measured as the sector’s concentration of total employment. Stockholm County is ranked in fourteenth place and the greater Helsinki region (Etelä-Suomi) is in eighteenth.
The Nordic high tech sector
The Öresund region’s high tech profile is not as strong in a Nordic comparison as it is from a more European perspective. By calculating a regional specialisation index for the high tech sector, where the value 1 is equal to the total average for Denmark, Finland and Sweden, it is possible to describe how the technological profile looks in different regions. Both the Stockholm and Helsinki regions have a high tech specialisation of more than 50 percent above the Nordic average, compared to the total Öresund region where the degree of specialisation is only 16 percent above the Nordic average. Within the Öresund region, the Capital Region of Denmark has the highest degree of specialisation at 41 percent above the average in the Nordic countries.
The table indicates that both Stockholm and Helsinki are specialised in goods as well as service-producing high tech industries. This could be interpreted that the value-added process is longer in Stockholm and Helsinki than in Öresund. This means that Stockholm and Helsinki reap greater effects from their respective regions’ R&D because it is put into the production of goods in their own regions.
This image changes somewhat when looking at special industries in the high tech sector. The Öresund region has a competitive position in pharmaceutical production and in some computer-related forms of service production compared to Stockholm and Helsinki. Skåne is highly specialised in many of the manufacturing industries but also in natural science and technological research and development. This is because there are research and development companies in biotechnology as well as telecommunications in this area. The Capital Region of Denmark has a prominent position the in pharmaceutical industry, other advanced technological manufacturing and several computer industries. Region Zealand has its most distinct industrial specialisation in pharmaceuticals and the production of medical equipment. Of all Danish, Finnish and Swedish employees in the pharmaceutical and the medical technology industries in 2008, some 50 percent and 38 percent were working in the Öresund region, respectively.
A pan-Nordic comparison of the regions’ specialisation in scientific and technical knowledge production (R&D) on the one hand and in high tech production on the other shows that both sides of the sound belong to the few Nordic high tech centres where the two basic elements in production’s chain of value has a strong concentration in the same geographic location. This fact combined with the constant efforts to raise the quality of cooperation between these two sectors together with a market orientation allow the Öresund region a strong starting point to retain significant regional, economic impulses from its high technology manufacturing industry in the future. Locating in the same area can occur immediately within companies, but can also take the form of cooperation between a local university and research centre and industry. Besides the Öresund region, the greater Stockholm and Helsinki regions also share this advantageous position with Västra Götaland and Östra Götaland in Sweden and North Österbotten in Finland.
With over 52 000 persons employed in technological research and high tech production industry (23 percent of the total Nordic employment in the sector), the Öresund region in 2007 was the largest Nordic knowledge centre followed by Stockholm in second place with 44 000 employees in the sector. However, important to remember that the Öresund region cannot yet be described as an economically homogenous region in the same way that other large urban regions can, such as the greater Stockholm and Helsinki regions. Meanwhile an increased linking of industry in Öresund SE og Öresund DK will, in the long-term, be strongly enhanced by scale effects that will also strengthen the Öresund region’s position both in competition and cooperation with other large urban regions elsewhere in the Nordic countries and in Europe.
- The Nordic high tech sector, 2008. Specialisation index for the high tech sector in the Öresund region, Stockholm and Helsinki
Source: Statistics Denmark, Statistics Finland and Statistics Sweden. Calculations by Region Skåne
