Only one Caribbean country ranked within the top 50 from a list of 142 economies. Barbados scored in the top 50 group while Jamaica and the Dominican Republic fell several points.
Barbados was at 42 on the index, one place up from the previous year. Guyana also rose one place to 109. In the regional index for the Americas, which includes the Caribbean, Barbados is fifth and Trinidad and Tobago is 13 in a list of 42 countries. That group is led by the United States as number one followed by Canada, Chile and Puerto Rico. Brazil is ranked at seven.
One of the most notable drops in the region was the Dominican Republic, falling nine points to 110 in just one year with Jamaica doing even worse, falling 12 points to 107.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) noted that while the region shares "persistent challenges” in terms of a lack of physical security it attributed Jamaica's tumble mainly to its deterioration in security.
Other points cited were the island's poor development of infrastructure; an inefficient allocation of production and human resources infrastructure; and an increasingly a lag in innovation against other more developed, but also emerging, economies.
“Addressing these challenges in the next decade will be crucial to ensure the economic and social progress of the region,” stated the WEF.
The Global Competitiveness Report’s competitiveness ranking was introduced in 2004, comprising 12 categories, which together provide a comprehensive picture of a country’s competitiveness landscape.
The 12 pillars 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.
This year over 14,000 business leaders were polled in a record 142 economies.
Another economy survey conducted by the Financial Post for the Caribbean and Latin American region named Trinidad and Tobago at the number one country of the future and third in the whole region. Costa Rica was rated as number in the survey that was released just a few days ago.
Read the story: T&T is #1 among Caribbean countries of the future
The top performers in the Global Competitiveness index:
- Switzerland
- Singapore
- Sweden
- Finland
- United States
- Germany
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Japan
- The United Kingdom
No comments:
Post a Comment