DUSHANBE, October 9, 2008, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan is ranked 116th among 134 economies in the Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009, improving by one place this year.
The United States tops the overall ranking in the Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009. Switzerland is in second position followed by Denmark, Sweden and Singapore. European economies continue to prevail in the top 10 with Finland, Germany and the Netherlands following suit. The United Kingdom, while remaining very competitive, has dropped by three places and out of the top 10, mainly attributable to a weakening of its financial markets.
China continues to lead the way among large developing economies, joining the top 30. All of the BRIC economies figure in the top half of the ranking, with China followed by India (50th), Russia (51st) and Brazil (64th).
Kazakhstan is ranked 66th in this year”s GCI, dropping by five places. However, Kazakhstan is the highest-ranked country in Central Asia. Kazakhstan gets excellent marks for its labor market efficiency, which is ranked 12th worldwide, with high levels of flexibility in the hiring and firing process and in determining wages.
Kyrgyzstan is in 122nd position. Azerbaijan was ranked 69th in the report, Armenia 97th, Georgia 90th, Moldova 95th, and Ukraine is in 72nd position.
The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network of Partner Institutes (leading research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the report.
The Global Competitiveness Report’s main competitiveness ranking is the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), developed for the World Economic Forum by Sala-i-Martin and originally introduced in 2004. The GCI is based on 12 pillars of competitiveness, providing a comprehensive picture of the competitiveness landscape in countries around the world at all stages of development. The pillars include: institutions; infrastructure; macroeconomic stability; health and primary education; higher education and training; goods market efficiency; labor market efficiency; financial market sophistication; technological readiness; market size; business sophistication; and innovation.
