WEF releases annual Global Competitiveness Report
1,233 views · Published 21 October 2018 · 4:22 · Indexed 5 October 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(16 Oct 2018) Organizers of the annual Davos conference say the United States is atop their list of the world's most competitive economies for the first time in a decade, reflecting a new methodology and long-term factors more than recent policies of the Trump administration. The WEF released its elaborate and highly-watched - if still subjective - "Global Competitiveness Report" on Wednesday, based on nearly 100 separate factors in a dozen categories to better reflect today's rapidly-changing, increasingly digitized world economy. The US topped Singapore, Germany, Switzerland - last year's No. 1 - and Japan in the top five spots among the 140 economies considered. In nearly 40 years of WEF rankings on competitiveness, the US previously earned top honours in 2008. WEF managing director Saadia Zahidi cautioned against reading too much into the No. 1 ranking for the United States: Though it scored 85.6 out of 100, there was still room for improvement - and noted some considerable "worrying signs" for the US on the horizon. While the US scored well for business dynamism, financial system and innovation, it fared less well on areas such as security - including a high homicide rate for a developed country. "It's a country that is doing extremely well in terms of its labor market dynamism overall, but workers' rights remain low," said Zahidi. "Active labor market policies are also somewhat missing as compared to other advanced economies. And then finally when it comes to independence of the judiciary and independence of the press, there are also some extremely worrying signs." Nearly all of the top 30 performers are developed economies in Asia and Europe, along with Israel at 20, the United Arab Emirates at 27, China at 28, and Qatar at 30. Many African countries again lagged, and they have shown few signs of significant improvement, WEF analysts said. The authors tweaked their index this year to account in part for the impacts of the 2008 financial crisis, changes in human capital, and the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" - a WEF buzzword. The main takeaway of this revised edition: No single factor makes a country stand out, and each nation should find its route to developing and improving, they say. "If anything, this report is saying there are no silver bullets," said Saadia Zahidi, a WEF managing director in charge of economic and social agenda, noting the changes in the think tank's analysis of the world economy. "We used to say you have to compete on the basis of your low skilled labor. You need to industrialize first then you need to bring in other aspects of growth and competitiveness." "That model no longer exists not in a world where you have cheaper capital and cheaper technology than ever before," she said in an interview at WEF's bucolic offices overlooking Lake Geneva. As usual with the WEF, which strives to contribute to a better world, the report makes a pitch for the importance of "openness" at a time of rising trade tensions and increasing protectionist or isolationist impulses in some parts of the globe - notably the West. It insists that social safety nets and investments in "human capital" do not necessarily come at the expense of economic growth. The rankings, with 98 separate data points, offered bright spots as well as points of improvement for nearly every country: Germany was No. 1 in innovation, for example. China, which ranked No. 1 in terms of "market size" based on per-capita purchasing power parity, tallied poor marks in some areas - notably ranking a dead-last 140th in "freedom of the press." Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/664cd60a6de1fe6222e7149832e4ee0e
