SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AS A FACTOR OF COMPETITIVENESS OF NATIONAL ECONOMY

Abstract

Regional issues are an indispensable subject of interest of experts from different provinces in each country. The presence of pronounced regional disparities in different domains is generally considered to be the source of various problems in the functioning of the national economy and society as a whole. Over the past two decades, several proposals for regionalization have been put forward in Serbia, given its strategic commitment to EU accession. The paper presents the current regionalization of Serbia in accordance with the NUTS classification, taking into account the specific position of the Kosovo and Metohija region. The basic characteristics of the NUTS 2 level regions are analyzed from the point of view of strengthening the competitiveness of the national economy. In a separate part of the paper, the institutional foundations of the country's regional development and the need to align domestic regional policy with European practices and standards (exogenous vs. endogenous approach, urban-rural, etc.) are discussed. Human capital, entrepreneurship and regional development can be seen as determinants of the mechanism of progress through which national economies grow.