UK Competitiveness
More than 200 projects in rail, road, local transport, flood defenses, broadband, airport infrastructure and waste management are due to start construction in 2014 to 2015 alone. This has been undertaken to improve UK businesses ability to transport goods, to communicate and make the UK a more attractive place to set up a business or invest. UK companies may gain advantages due to these improvements in infrastructure that improve their competitiveness. On the other hand, investment in infrastructure is not cheap, huge sums of money has been dedicated to development projects and this money could have been spent elsewhere.
The Investment In Infrastructure Is a good Idea, as It helps I-J firms become more efficient and can reduce costs, making them more nominative Increasing access to finance Is another measure that has been undertaken via the creation of the funding for lending scheme and the El ban business bank. The increased access to capital for business may lead to increased investment in improving technology, becoming more productive or growing in size. These can only help UK companies become more competitive on global markets and help increase their exports.
This does encourage investment by businesses on growing and becoming more competitive but it also is not a guarantee that they will do so. Businesses may not see it as advantageous to invest at that time and may hold on to their money, having no positive effects on UK competitiveness. In addition an increased tax allowance leads to decreased tax receipts which reduces the governments income whilst is already running at a deficit and may mean it cannot spend money elsewhere. The government is undergoing the process of cutting corporation tax from 23% to 20% by 2015.
This will make the UK a more attractive place to set up a business and encourages Investment Into the country. However It does mean that the UK will see reduced tax receipts which may reduce public pending as less money Is available and this will have a negative effect on competitiveness. Also, companies may decide not to invest money saved from business regulation involves removing two regulations whenever one new one is created and this helps business to develop and grow as there are fewer barriers to pass through to get things done.
Also there is no cost to this policy which means that no money is taken away from other sectors or areas of spending. A negative effect of the policy is that too much deregulation could have severe negative effects on the economy, as seen by the crisis of 2008. Steps to improve the education system have begun via changes to the curriculum to promote mathematics and improve English skills, as well as improving training and increasing both the quality and the number of apprenticeships available to people in the I-J.
These steps can help to improve competitiveness as if your workforce is more skilled then they will generally see a rise in productivity an increased likelihood of inward investment leading to higher efficiency. Business may develop new technology making them more competitive as result as a better educated workforce. However, there is a time lag, these measures ill take years to have an effect and may not be so desperately required in the future.
Also the effect of labor costs may still mean the business invest or set up elsewhere, as cost overrides skill and this will not improve competitiveness. In conclusion, every measure has its downfalls but it is the way they are implemented and how they are regulated that decides their effectiveness. For example, investment in infrastructure cannot be set too high so that it drags from other areas and taxes should be cut to encourage investment and promote business growth but cut to a level that is beneficial for both business and the economy as a whole.
