The City of Ottawa has been selected as the site of a prestigious international conference in 2004.

The Competitiveness Institute chose Ottawa as the site of next year's conference, which attracts economic development officials from around the globe.

Alf Chaiton, a senior adviser to Mayor Bob Chiarelli, and Mike Darch, an official with the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation, are attending this year's conference in Gothenburg, Sweden. They learned of the news Thursday.

In last week's issue of the Ottawa Business Journal, it was reported that the city was on the shortlist for the conference.

"I think Ottawa has been recognized as a leader in cluster-based economic development because there is a lot of private sector involvement," said Chaiton in a telephone call from Sweden.

The Competitiveness Institute is an innovative organization based in Barcelona, Spain that focuses on cluster-based economic development. Ottawa, through the Ottawa Partnership, has identified this method of growing the economy as the direction for the next 20 years. There are currently about 10 mature and seed clusters in the city.