It provides a powerful incentive to increasing economic efficiency - and the higher sustainable growth rate that we need to satisfy our aspirations for improving living standards - by encouraging the concentration of production on those businesses, or regions, or countries, which have, or are able to develop, a comparative advantage in particular products or services. That's not necessarily how it seems at the micro-economic level. Individual businesses and their employees, or regions, or even countries at the international level, tend to think of competition and market-driven resource allocation as a zero-sum game: if one side wins the other necessarily loses. So it's not surprising that existing producers are tempted to resist the opening of their markets to  BIS Review 53/2002  1  greater competition and look for protection where they can. But attempting to stem the tide by acquiescing in protection would be to ignore the benefits which increased competition, and more efficient and innovative production would bring to society at large, including consumers, as well as potentially more efficient producers and their prospective employees, wherever they are located. It is those benefits which make market competition a positive-sum game at the macro-economic level. I don't at all underestimate the pressures on businesses, and their employees and surrounding communities, that struggle to retain their comparative advantage in a market economy. But standing still is not an option in today's world - nor will it be going forward.
And I find increasingly as I travel around the country that local businesses and their representative organisations - including both commercial and industrial sectors and the professional services sectors - are working together, with the local academic community, and with the regional and local authorities, to identify - on the basis of their local knowledge - the particular obstacles, and the particular opportunities, they face, recognising that there is a great deal that they themselves can do through partnership - including public-private partnership - to help create a more positive supply-side environment at the regional and local level. That partnership typically embraces not only issues facing the mainstream economy but extends to direct involvement in activities designed to draw into the mainstream economy communities which for one reason or another are liable to be left on the sidelines, but which, if they are given the right opportunities, clearly can contribute to both the economic prosperity and the social cohesion of the region. And I find that positive approach here too in the West Midlands. It's very much the purpose of this conference - organised by AWM - Advantage West Midlands - alongside the IOD and the ICA. It's the purpose, too, for example, of the West Midlands Regional Finance Forum organised by AWM and bringing together the banks and accountants, representatives of the ethnic minorities and community finance organisations - including Aston Reinvestment Trust, as well as academics and the Small Business Service, with the aim of improving access to finance for business at all levels.