The paper deals with the relevant, from the economic point of view, issue of competitiveness referred to the rural areas and the problem of their sustainable, constant and multifunctional development with regard to the National Development Strategy for years 2007-2015. The author presents different sorts of advantages which may be useful while implementing the idea of competitiveness on the rural areas. The problem is based mostly on finding such determinants which could reveal the chances for development, forming simultaneously the challenge for rural areas in terms of their competitive forces, i.e. strengths (assets), based on the local, endogenous potential.