2 December 2004
Globalisation and the UK – strength and opportunity to meet the economic challenge
‘Globalisation and the UK – strength and opportunity to meet the economic challenge’ sets out how businesses, individuals and Government in the UK need to respond to the challenges and opportunities of globalisation. The paper builds on ‘Long-term global economic challenges and opportunities for the UK’, published at the 2004 Pre-Budget Report, which set out the six key challenges to which advanced countries such as the UK need to respond.
The paper considers a number of factors that impact on the UK’s response:
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how macroeconomic stability and a flexible business environment provide the foundations necessary for a prosperous domestic economy, and how this is made more important by globalisation; and
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the importance of comparative advantage and new economic geography theories in explaining how globalisation impacts on businesses’ location decisions.
In the light of this analysis, the paper identifies priorities for the policy response to enable the UK to respond successfully to the challenges of globalisation. In particular, it draws out five policy areas in which the UK needs to make substantial further progress in order to benefit fully and secure the gains from globalisation:
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the importance of meeting changing skills needs;
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strengthening the capacity for science and innovation;
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reducing regulatory burdens on business;
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ensuring that the planning system is flexible and responsive to changing economic needs; and
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ensuring that the UK’s transport infrastructure supports a flexible and enterprising business sector.
'Globalisation and the UK – strength and opportunity to meet the economic challenge' is available below in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website. For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page .