The Midlands Regional Authority is to launch an international drive to attract healthcare and pharmaceutical companies to Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath over the next 20 years.
The plan, based upon a model successfully used in Denmark to promote eight neighbouring towns, will be considered at a major conference in Athlone Institute of Technology on January 22nd.
Athlone, Mullingar and Tullamore were given "gateway" status in the Government's National Spatial Strategy, while Longford and Portlaoise were designated as "hub" towns.
The regional authority is currently drafting planning guidelines to create "a successful, sustainable and equitable region full of opportunities for its expanded population".
Warning that the Midlands must compete nationally and internationally, it said: "How we plan and set the conditions for sustaining and enhancing the productive capacity of the region in the years ahead will be crucially important."
The Danish experience will be outlined to the conference by Mr Jorgen B Jacobsen, director of the Triangle Region, which has achieved considerable success since its foundation in 1993.
The Triangle is a collaboration on industrial, environmental and planning issues between eight municipalities - Børkop, Fredericia, Kolding, Lunderskov, Middelfart, Vamdrup, Vejen and Vejle.
"Together, the eight municipalities, home to 225,000 people, can undertake tasks that would be impossible alone. It thereby has strength on a par with that of other large Danish urban communities," a spokesman said.
The region was recently named by the Brussels-based Andersen Business Location Services organisation as one of the best locations in the European Union for companies seeking to establish distribution hubs.
Westmeath County Manager, Ms Ann McGuinness, said the Midlands Regional Authority had "worked hard" on the regional planning guidelines with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland.
"We believe that the authority is the first to be off the blocks to take advantage of the National Spatial Strategy. The Midlands region is the best prepared in the country," Ms McGuinness told The Irish Times.
"We need to kickstart the gateways to influence investors. They are our target audience. The credibility that designation gives will influence those same investors," she said.
The Danish towns have been successful, she said, because they have co-operated on major issues "rather than trying to compete with each other all the time, which is the historic experience".
In future, towns will have to create clusters of related companies to be able to attract, and keep experienced staff and to encourage relationships between all of them, backed up by third-level institutions.
Mr Emiliano Duch, the president of the Barcelona-based Competitiveness Group and Mr Peter Mehlybe, director of the Luxembourg-based European Spatial Planning Observation Network will offer the international experience.
"We already have clusters in the region, Abbot Pharmaceuticals in Longford, Elan in Athlone, Tyco as well. The IDA sees the base operating the Athlone Institute of Technology.
"However, we are not going to abandon anything else. But a good strategy is to identify something that is already there and build on it," said Ms McGuinness, who is also the regional authority's designated manager.
The authority comprises 24 county councillors from Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Longford, along with one nominee from the Minister for the Environment and Local Government.
