{"id":45787,"date":"2013-09-04T19:55:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T21:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/escaesco.com.br\/lab\/anba\/arab-countries-rank-among-worlds-20-most-competitive\/"},"modified":"2019-06-30T13:10:17","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T16:10:17","slug":"arab-countries-rank-among-worlds-20-most-competitive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/arab-countries-rank-among-worlds-20-most-competitive\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab countries rank among world’s 20 most competitive"},"content":{"rendered":"

São Paulo – The World Economic Forum released this year’s edition of the Global Competitiveness Report<\/em>last Tuesday (3rd). In the 13th position, Qatar is the best placed Arab country in the survey. In the top 20, it is followed by its Arab counterparts United Arab Emirates (19th) and Saudi Arabia (20th). For the fifth year running, the ranking is led by Switzerland. Singapore, Finland, Germany, United States, Sweden, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Japan and United Kingdom are also among the top ten. Brazil ranks 56th out of 148 countries.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Middle East and North Africa countries are still plagued by regional instabilities, which detract from their economies and those of neighbouring countries. Countries which have experienced political revolts have dropped in this year’s ranking compared with 2012. Bahrain ranked 35th in 2012 and now it ranks 43rd. Tunisia placed 83rd this year, but did not feature in the 2012 list. Egypt, which had ranked 107th in 2012, fell to the 118th position this year. Yemen ranked 140th last year and 145th this year. <\/p>\n

The study acknowledges, however, that the resource-rich countries in the region have performed well in the ranking. “These countries have managed to contain the effects of rising energy prices on their economies and have used the window of opportunity to embark on structural reforms and invest in competitiveness-enhancing measures,” according to the study.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 Qatar was the best-placed Arab country. Despite having dropped from the 11th position in 2012 to the 13th this year, the country fared well in the institutional structure ranking, in the 4th position, the stable macroeconomic environment ranking (6th) and the efficient goods market ranking (3rd). On the other hand, the study claims that the country still performs below international standards in areas such as patenting. <\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates, which climbed from the 24th to the 19th position between 2012 and 2013, benefited from high oil prices, which have helped it reduce the public deficit and increase its savings. The study claims that the country’s good performance stems from its infrastructure quality (5th in the ranking), goods market (4th) and macroeconomic stability. The report, warns, however, that the country needs to invest in improving the quality of its healthcare and education systems. <\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, which dropped from the 18th position in 2012 to the 20th this year, had a strong macroeconomic performance (4th), but ranked 53rd in healthcare and basic education and 48th in higher education and training. In labour market efficiency, the country ranked a meagre 70th. <\/p>\n

As to other Arab countries, Oman dropped from 32nd to 33rd; Kuwait climbed from 37th to 36th; Jordan dropped from 64th to 68th; Morocco dropped from 70th to 77th; Algeria climbed from 110th to 100th; Lebanon dropped from 91st to 103rd; Libya climbed from 113th to 108th; and Mauritania climbed from 134th to 141st.<\/p>\n

Brazil and the world <\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the survey, Brazil went from 48th in 2012 to 56th in 2013, with a “slight” deterioration in macroeconomic indicators, in which it placed 75th. Other factors detracting from the country’s performance included the functioning of its institutions (in which it ranked 80th), government efficiency (124th), corruption (114th), trust in politicians (136th), infrastructure (114th), education (121st) and economy closed off to international competition (144º).<\/p>\n

Brazil performed well in items such as business community (39th) and innovation excellence hubs (36th). “Going forward, Brazil should not delay the necessary reforms to boost its competitiveness, and should further leverage its numerous and important strengths,” according to the document. <\/p>\n

The study posits that economic perspectives this year are better than those of 2012, and concedes that some of the fears set forth in the previous edition have not proved true. However, some uncertainties do persist. Such is the case with the reduction of economic stimuli to the United States economy, the aggressive, “yet still incomplete” financial and structural measures implemented by Japan, and the persistent unemployment and economic recovery challenges in Europe. “In emerging markets, it is uncertain how protests in Brazil and Turkey, the credit crunch in China, and the potentially volatile capital flows to emerging and developing markets will affect growth in these economies,” it posits. <\/p>\n

In order to determine the degree of competitiveness in each country, scores ranging from 1 to 7 were given to 12 different items. The nearest a score is to 7, the better the country’s rate of competitiveness. The items evaluated were: 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. Each of these items includes other aspects. “Institutions,” for instance, comprise the country’s performance in fighting corruption. <\/p>\n

Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marcos Carrieri\/ANBA<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are some of the countries with the highest degrees of competitiveness in the world, according to a World Economic Forum survey. Brazil ranks 56th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":183035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are some of the countries with the highest degrees of competitiveness in the world, according to a World Economic Forum survey. Brazil ranks 56th.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}