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Thursday, September 08, 2011
Pakistan improves 5 ranks on Global Competitiveness IndexStaff Report
KARACHI: Pakistan’s ranking has improved from the 123rd position to the 118th in the Global Competitiveness Index released by the World Economic Forum.
The report, titled “The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012”, released on Wednesday said, “Yet, in several categories, Pakistan still requires improvements in performance among the developing Asia region. It particularly needs to concentrate on the most basic areas of competitiveness, namely institutions (107th), infrastructure (115th), health and primary education (121st), and the macroeconomic environment (138th).
The report said that in order to benefit from the scale advantages associated with its significant market size (30th), Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) had identified that Pakistan would have to decrease regulatory rigidities in the labour market (now ranked 136th) and reduce barriers to domestic and foreign competition in order to render the markets for goods and services more efficient (93rd). It added that boosting the technological adoption of firms and the public at large would allow for considerable productivity increases in the country.
CSF Chief Executive Officer Shahab Khawaja said, “Pakistan is facing multiple challenges on its economic, security and globalisation fronts, however, the policy-makers must not lose sight of long-term competitiveness fundamentals. For the recovery to be put on a more stable footing, Pakistan must ensure that growth is based on productivity enhancements. It needs to focus on competitiveness-enhancing measures in order to create a virtuous cycle of growth and ensure solid economic recovery.”
“After a number of difficult years, a recovery from the economic crisis is tentatively emerging, although it has been very unequally distributed: much of the developing world is still seeing relatively strong growth, despite some risk of overheating, while most advanced economies continue to experience sluggish recovery, persistent unemployment and financial vulnerability, with no clear horizon for improvement,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. “The complexity of today’s global economic environment has made it more important than ever to recognise and encourage the qualitative as well as the quantitative aspects of growth.”
Switzerland tops the overall rankings in The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012, while Singapore overtakes Sweden for the second position. Northern and Western European countries dominate the top 10 with Sweden (3rd), Finland (4th), Germany (6th), the Netherlands (7th), Denmark (8th) and the United Kingdom (10th). Japan remains the second-ranked Asian economy at 9th place, despite falling three places since last year.
The Global Competitiveness Report’s competitiveness ranking is based on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), developed for the World Economic Forum by Sala-i-Martin and was introduced in 2004. The GCI is comprised of 12 categories – the pillars of competitiveness – which together provide a comprehensive picture of a country’s competitiveness landscape.
The pillars on which ranking is measured are institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.
The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum with its network of Partner Institutes. CSF is the Partner Institution of WEF in Pakistan. This year, over 14,000 business leaders were polled in a record 142 economies. The survey is designed to capture a broad range of factors affecting an economy’s business climate.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk