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October 9, 2019
World Economic Forum publishes Global Competitiveness Report 2019
Photo: Impressions at the Annual Meeting 2019 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, 19 January 2019. Image provided by & Copyright © World Economic Forum / Mattias Nutt. [File Photo]
Geneva, Switzerland, 9 October 2019 - Ten years on from the global financial crisis, the global economy remains locked in a cycle of low or flat productivity growth despite the injection of more than $10 trillion by central banks. While these unprecedented measures were successful in averting a deeper recession, they are not enough to catalyze the allocation of resources towards productivity-enhancing investments in the private and public sectors. The Global Competitiveness Report 2019, published today, points to the path forward.
The Report, launched in 1979, provides an annual assessment of the drivers of productivity and long-term economic growth. The World Economic Forum prepares the Report on the bases of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which maps the competitiveness landscape of 141 economies through 103 indicators organized into 12 pillars. These pillars are Institutions; Infrastructure; ICT adoption; Macroeconomic stability; Health; Skills; Product market; Labour market; Financial system; Market size; Business dynamism; and Innovation capability. For each indicator, the index uses a scale from 0 to 100, and the final score shows how close an economy is to the ideal state or “frontier” of competitiveness.
With a score of 84.8 (+1.3), Singapore is the world’s most competitive economy in 2019. The United States remains the most competitive large economy in the world, coming in at a second place. Hong Kong SAR (3rd), Netherlands (4th), and Switzerland (5th) round up the top five. The average across the 141 economies covered is 61 points, almost 40 points to the frontier. This global competitiveness gap is of even more concern as the global economy faces the prospect of a downturn. The changing geopolitical context and rising trade tensions are fuelling uncertainty and could precipitate a slowdown. However, some of this year’s better performers in the GCI appear to be benefiting from the trade feud through trade diversion, including Singapore (1st) and Viet Nam (67th), the most improved country in this year’s index.
The report documents emerging areas of promising policies, reforms, and incentives to build more sustainable and inclusive economies. The Report recommends a transition to a greener economy and suggests four critical areas of action: engage in openness and international collaboration, update carbon taxes and subsidies, create incentives for R&D, and implement green public procurement.
The Report also recommends: increase equality of opportunity, encourage fair competition, update tax systems, modernize social protection measures, and foster competitiveness-enhancing investments.
The United States (2nd overall) is the leader in Europe and North America. The United States remains an innovation powerhouse, ranking 1st on the Business dynamism pillar and 2nd on Innovation capability. The Netherlands (4th), Switzerland (5th), Germany (7th), Sweden (8th), the United Kingdom (9th), and Denmark (10th) follow the USA. Among other large economies in the region, Canada is 14th, France 15th, Spain 23rd, and Italy 30th. The most improved country is Croatia (63rd).
In South Asia, India, in 68th position, loses ground in the rankings despite a relatively stable score, mostly due to faster improvements of several countries previously ranked lower. Sri Lanka (84th), Bangladesh (105th), Nepal (108th), and Pakistan (110th) follow India.
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 1:05 PM | Link to this Post
