ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has been ranked at 118th position in the Global Competitiveness Report, showing improvement in the position of the country as compared to the last year's placement at 123th number.
Switzerland tops the overall rankings in the Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012, released on Wednesday by the World Economic Forum, Pakistan (118th) partially bounces back from last year's significant drop in ranks of (123).
Yet, in several categories, it still requires improvements in performance among the developing Asia region, the report said.
Pakistan particularly needs to concentrate on the most basic areas of competitiveness, namely institutions (107th), infrastructure (115th), health and primary education (121st), and the macroeconomic environment (138th).
The Report says that in order to benefit from the scale advantages associated with its significant market size (30th) CSF has identified that Pakistan will have to decrease regulatory rigidities in the labour market (now ranked 136th) and reduce barriers to domestic and foreign competition in order to render the markets for goods and services more efficient (93rd).
Last but not least, boosting the technological adoption of firms and the public at large would allow for considerable productivity increases in the country.
Shahab Khawaja, Chief Executive officer of the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), a joint initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Finance, government of Pakistan, said that "Pakistan is facing multiple challenges on its economic, security and globalization fronts; however the policy-makers must not lose sight of long-term competitiveness fundamentals.
For the recovery to be put on a more stable footing, Pakistan must ensure that growth is based on productivity enhancements.
The economy is struggling with fiscal challenges and anaemic growth, it needs to focus on competitiveness-enhancing measures in order to create a virtuous cycle of growth and ensure solid economic recovery.
"This year's improvements in ranking also shows the continuous efforts that the CSF has been putting in identifying and advising the government on the key critical factors to improve competitiveness and economic growth in Pakistan". said Shahab.
"After a number of difficult years, a recovery from the economic crisis is tentatively emerging, although it has been very unequally distributed; much for the developing world is still seeing relatively strong growth, despite some risk of overheating, while most advance economies continue to experience sluggish recovery, persistent unemployment and financial vulnerability, with no clear horizon for improvement," said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.
"The complexity of today's global economic environment aspects of growth, integrating such concepts as inclusiveness and environmental sustainability to provide a fuller picture of what is needed and what works".
Switzerland tops the overall rankings in the Global competitiveness Report 2011-2012, while singapore overtakes Sweden for second position. Northern and Western European countries dominate the top 10 with
Sweden (3rd), Finland (4th), Germany (6th), the Netherlands (7th), Denmark (8th) and United kingdom (10th), Japan remains the second-ranked Asian economy at 9th place, despite falling three places since last year.
The Global Competitiveness Report's competitiveness ranking is based on the Global competitiveness Index (GCI), developed for the World Economic Forum by Sala-i-Martin and introduced in 2004. The GCI comprises 12 categories - the pillars of competitiveness - which together provide a comprehensive picture of a country's competitiveness landscape.
The pillars are, on which the ranking are measured are: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.
The ranking are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum with its network of Partner Institutes.
Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011
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