Innovation and infrastructure still holding back NZ's international competitiveness

New Zealand's national infrastructure and capacity to innovate stand out as two factors that continue to drag on the country's international competitiveness, even as it rose three places in the ranks from last year and 10 places better than in 2012/13, as judged in an annual survey by the World Economic Forum.

From 16th place in the 2015/16 Global Competitiveness Report, New Zealand rose to 13th, nine places ahead of Australia at 22nd, and 15 places ahead of the country's other major trading partner, China, on 28th.

Switzerland topped the WEF global competitiveness rankings, followed by Singapore and the US in an annual survey that has become a benchmark for judging relative competitiveness.

As in past years, New Zealand ranks strongest in the quality of its public institutions and legal system, suffers inevitably from having a small domestic market, and continues to lag on measures relating to the capacity of companies to innovate successfully and the quality of public infrastructure, despite the strides made in improving national ultra-fast broadband connectivity.

Inefficient government bureaucracy and an inadequately educated workforce are the other two of the top four factors holding back New Zealand's competitiveness, as judged by poll results from a range of New Zealand company executives. The annual survey seeks the views of corporate and other senior executives from 138 countries to derive its rankings.

The country scored best on the absence of corruption, low inflation, open financial markets and stable government.

Other major trading partners, the UK, Japan and Hong Kong ranked 7th, 8th and 9th respectively.

Other areas to rank especially poorly for New Zealand were the state of industry cluster development, at 47th, and government procurement of advanced technology, at 44th.

Areas of strength included local supplier quality, at 12th and labour market efficiency on a ranking of sixth, while higher education and goods market efficiency, were both ranked 10th in the world.

(BusinessDesk)