Abstract
1, Introduction
In France, the poles de comptitivite policy started 2005 by French government. This is a cluster policy executed by the cooperation of government and the Region. In this policy, they construct a platform for private-public collaboration of projects. The poles de competitivite, there are 71 poles today, are established generally in every Region, but some its territories extend over some Regions.
In this study, I would like to analyse the poles managed by several Regions as the wide-area collaboration of regional policy. I would like to examine two points: 1) the influence of the wide-area collaboration on the reinforcement of the regional competitiveness, 2) why French government recommends the wide-area cluster policy.
The example of this study is Aerospace Valley. It is a cluster of aerospace industry managed by Aquitaine Region and Midi-Pyrenees Region.
2, The process of the development of aerospace industry in two Regions
In both Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine, the historical process of industrial development in two Regions is same. First, military industries evacuated in this region before the world war II. Second, in the 1960s, this region became an object of the decentralisation policy and many high-tech industries or aerospace institutes moved from Paris to the capitals of two Regions.
But the industrial distributions in two Regions are different. In Aquitaine, the principal company is Dassault and its factories are in Bordeaux and Biarritz. The distribution of this Region is relatively decentralized.
In Midi-Pyrenees, there are a lot of suppliers of Airbus or manufacturer of embedded system in Toulouse. This Region is characterized as centralized structure of industry.
3, The wide-area collaboration in Aerospace Valley
In Aerospace Valley, 9 strategic business sectors are established. In this section, I analyse the distribution of each strategic business sectors.
The strategic business sectors can divide into three classifications by the distribution of companies. Classification A is characterized as concentration in Toulouse and it contains business strategic sector 4, 5, 6, and 7. This classification mainly contains system development of embedded systems for aircrafts or satellites and related services to this industries.
Classification B (strategic business sectors 3 and 9) in characterized to concentrate in capitals of two Regions. In these sectors, the development of new technology is focused and many institutes participate this classification.
The companies of classification C have a tendency of dispersion. In this classification, suppliers and maintenance companies are important and small and medium-sized enterprises participate in this sector.
From these analyses, three points are pointed out: 1) a support of Toulouse, 2) focus on two capitals in research and development, 3) consideration of entire two Regions by supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. 2 and 3 have to do with two Regions and Aerospace Valley promote the wide-area collaboration in supporting SMEs and development of new technologies.
4, Conclusion
Aerospace Valley attempts to link two Regions by wide-area collaboration and also attempts to construct a base for demonstrating higher competitiveness. But many strategic business sectors support only Toulouse, and it remains a problem that the development difference between Toulouse and other area can occur.
