The global recession has upset world competitiveness rankings, pushing the US down to third and New Zealand down five places.New Zealand hangs on its place in the top 20, making the third largest drop among the leaders from 15th to 20th.Economic performan
The global recession has upset world competitiveness rankings, pushing the US down to third and New Zealand down five places.
New Zealand hangs on its place in the top 20, making the third largest drop among the leaders from 15th to 20th.
Economic performance, business efficiency and infrastructure performance all slipped. Only the government efficiency rating improved – from seventh to fifth.
Summing up New Zealand's rating, NZIM northern manager Kevin Gaunt says: "The big issues for us are still our overall mediocre economic performance, our inability to attract investment funds, our corporate tax rates, our unemployment legislation, the brain drain, our shortage of communications technology investment and the high costs of some technology services, such as mobile, is also an ongoing concern for New Zealand." (NZIM provided local input into the survey.)
For the first time in decades, Singapore (1st) and Hong Kong (2nd) have topped the US in IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook rankings. However, the three are separated by less than a point.
Australia has jumped two places to fifth while Taiwan has rocketed from 23rd to eighth. The biggest gainers are Malaysia, 18th to 10th, and Israel, 24th to 17th.
Going in the other direction, Finland has fallen 10 places from 9th to 19th, Denmark 5th to 13th, and Germany 13th to 16th.
Among major economies, the UK is at 22, France 24, Japan 27 and Italy 40.
China (18th) has moved further up the top 20, ahead of the other BRIC nations – India (31), Brazil (38) and Russia (51).
The southern European nations at the centre of thew euro debt crisis are well down the list – Spain (36), Portugal (37) and Greece (46).
IMD says the latest rankings have been strongly affected by unusual volatility in economic growth (GDP data), exchange rates (especially the dollar versus the Euro), financial assets, trade and investment flows, and, finally, employment figures (which also impact productivity).
The Swiss-based organisation adds that world competitiveness is not just about improving performance, but also about damage control.
"Competitiveness highlights the relative position of nations in the pursuit of prosperity – but in a free-fall environment, the winners may simply be the ones who are the most resilient to downward forces," IMD says.
