SANGAM

Nepal 125th on Global Competitiveness Index
By Sangam Prasain

Kathmandu, Sept. 8,2009:
Nepal ranked 125th out of 133 countries in The Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 released by the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China.
The report was released by the Centre for Economic Development and Administration (CEDA), a partner institute of the World Economic Forum, in the capital on Tuesday.
The report’s competitiveness ranking based on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) claimed that Nepal’s volatile economic scenario, weak governance, poor infrastructure, lack of capacity for innovation, weak performance, among others, were attributed to Nepal’s 9th position from the countdown of the 133 countries.
Nepal scored 3.3 of 7.0 in GCI in 2009-10 as compared to 3.4 of 2008-09.
In 2008-09, Nepal had the 126th position among the 134 countries. The report said that Nepal had been positioned in the bottom of the South Asian countries with India (49), Sri Lanka (79), Pakistan (101) and Bangladesh (106).
Switzerland topped the overall ranking in the Global Competitive Report replacing the United States of America (USA) by a marginal 0.1 GCI score to the second position. Switzerland got 5.60 GCI score to claim the top position as against 5.59 of the USA.
Similarly, Singapore, Sweden and Denmark round out the top five position. 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 continued its fall from last year, moving down one more place this year to the 13th. The People’s Republic of China continues to lead the way among large developing economies improving by one place this year making its position among the top 30, the report claimed.
Among the BRIC economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China, Brazil and India made an improvement, while Russia dropped by 12 places. Several Asian economies performed strongly with Japan, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan and China also in the top 20. In Latin America, Chile is the highest ranked country followed by Costa Rica and Brazil.
A number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa regions are in the upper half of the ranking, led by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Tunisia. In sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, Mauritius and Botswana feature in the top half of the ranking, the report stated.
In regard to Nepal’s GCI index, quality of electricity supply and extent of staff training, the worse indicators of comparative disadvantage, remained at the 133rd position.
Based on 12 pillars of competitiveness having 111 sub-indices, that provides a comprehensive picture of the competitiveness landscape in countries around the world at all stages of development comprising infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and education, labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation, Nepal have only four indicator at competitive advantage.
The competitive advantaged sub-indices are national saving rate that is at the 35th position, total tax rate at the 38th position, number of procedures required to start a business at the 46th position and financing through local equity market at the 25th position among the 133 countries.
Nepal ranks at 130th in the quality of overall infrastructure, 119th in the intellectual property rights, 121st in government surplus/deficit, 115th both in education expenditure and primary enrollment, 111th in secondary enrollment, 130th in extent of market dominance and 129th in prevalence of foreign ownership.
Similarly, the country ranks the 119th in prevalence of trade barriers, 132nd in cooperation in labor-employer relations, 129th in brain drain, 114th in financial market sophistication, 128th in availability of latest technologies, 129th in FDI and technology transfer, 129th in mobile telephone subscribers, 117th in foreign market size, 126th in capacity of innovation and 127th in quality of scientific research institutions, the report said.
According to the CEDA, the rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the executive opinion surveys, an annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network partner institute in the countries covered by the report.