According to the findings of the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2017 – a research group at the IMD business school in Switzerland – UAE is shortlisted in the top 10 most competitive countries in the world in 2017, a significant increase from the 15th place in 2016.
The research is based in 260 parameters, two thirds of which come from “hard” data such as national employment and trade statistics. The remaining indicators come from more than 6,250 responses to an executive opinion survey that measures the business perception of issues such as corruption, environmental concerns and quality of life.
For the 2017 research, 63 countries are ranked, of which Saudi Arabia and Cyprus are included for the first time.
Hong Kong is shown at the top of the list for the second year, with Switzerland, Singapore and United States to follow at the second, third and fourth place, respectively. The Netherlands is at the fifth place, jumping three places from the eighth place in prior year.
The improvement of the UAE’s position, is considered as highly important, as it has surpassed some of the most developed countries including Norway (11th), Canada (12th), Germany (13th), Taiwan (14th) and Finland (15th) on the overall global competitiveness index.
Two of the parameters which have been considered as more important are related to the government and business efficiency as well as productivity.
Among the GCC countries included in the research, the UAE is ranked at the first place, with the highest competitiveness score of 94.08. Qatar dropped 4 places from the 15th place in prior year to the 19th place in 2017 and Saudi Arabia was ranked at the 36th place.
On the bottom of the competitiveness list, there are countries experiencing political and economic upheaval.
Professor Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre commented on this: “You would expect to see countries such as Ukraine (60th), Brazil (61st) and Venezuela (63rd) here, because you read about their political issues in the news. These issues are at the root of poor government efficiency which diminishes their place in the rankings.”