Vol. 545 No. 4
222 Mr. D. Carey asked the Minister for Finance the method used to measure competitiveness when making adjustments in the annual budget; the items which are used to evaluate cross-competitiveness with European economies; if he takes the price of items (details supplied) into consideration; and if he will give a practical example of the calculation used for the 2001 budget. [30847/01]
A key aspect of competitiveness to which my Department pays particular attention is wage competitiveness. An important pointer to labour competitiveness developments is afforded by comparing actual and prospective changes in nominal earnings here and abroad, adjusted for differences in output per worker.
For international comparison purposes, we use various sources of data, for example, EUROSTAT and the OECD. Tables 22 and 24 of the recently published European Commission forecasts for the member states provide estimates for both wages and output per worker. The change in unit labour costs which one might derive from these projections as adjusted for exchange rate considerations are one indicator to prospective competitiveness developments.
The details of budget 2001 and the related documentation will be available on budget evening.
