Brussels, 08/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - Last Thursday, on the initiative of Enterprise Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, the Commission published a Communication on business-related services, revealing that low productivity in business-related services is a serious threat to the competitiveness of European enterprises and the EU's overall potential for growth. In the Communication, the Commission sets out measures complementing the forthcoming proposal for a Directive to remove legal and administrative obstacles in the internal market for services. They aim to promote competition among service suppliers and help customers to compare prices and the nature of services offered. This, combined with better statistics to inform decision-taking, will help to make the markets more transparent. The measures include promoting service quality indicators, voluntary standards for the cross-border supply of services, and rules on reporting intangible assets such as training and software investment. Business-related services are inextricably linked to manufacturing industry, and are crucial to its competitiveness..
The Commission's Communication highlights that to meet these challenges: 1) the market for business-related services needs to be better integrated and more competitive in order to boost competitiveness; 2) better skills, greater use of ICTs and more innovation are needed; 3) action is needed to make it easier to measure and compare both business-related services and the overall activities of the sector; 4) the greater availability and use of business-related services in less developed regions and in the future Member States can help SMEs and the process of convergence; and 5) knowledge about the sector and the markets is scarce, hampering the decision process for enterprises and policy makers. In order to follow up these five sets of proposals the Commission will set up a European Forum on business-related services involving Community institutions, Member States, professional organisations, workers' representatives, research institutions and other enterprise-related stakeholders. Drawing on the work of the Forum, the Commission will present an Action Plan in the first half of 2005.