ARMENIA RANKS 97TH AMONG 134 COUNTRIES FOR GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS IN 2008
ARKA
Oct 9, 2008
YEREVAN, October 9. /ARKA/. Armenia ranked the 97th among 134 countries
for global competitiveness in 2008 – 4 points lower as compared with
the previous year, Chairman of "Economy and Values" Research Center
Manuk Yerghnyan said referring to the Global Competitiveness Report
2008-2009 prepared by the World Economic Forum.
Global competitiveness of countries is assessed based on 12 main
components – institutions, infrastructures, macroeconomic stability,
health and primary education, higher education and training, efficiency
of goods market, labor market efficiency, technological background,
domestic market volume, innovations and businesses improvement.
Yerghnyan said that this year Armenia is transiting from the first
resource-based stage of economic development to the second one –
efficiency-based stage.
Armenia showed progress and is included in the list of countries
with $2,000-3,000 GDP per capita (together with Georgia, Azerbaijan,
China, Kazakhstan and Jordan), he said. erghnyan pointed out that
Armenia’s position remains not bad (the 45th place) for labor
market efficiency attributable to liberalization and flexible
employer-employee relations.
Yet, Armenia is in lowest position (120th) on business improvement
component (application of modern strategic provisions in business
administration by Armenian companies).
Improvement in Armenia’s pos itions was recorded on the following
components as compared with last year – financial market efficiency,
healthcare and primary education (from 99th to 97th place)
and higher education and training (94th instead of the previous
95th place). Regress was recorded for the following components –
macroeconomic stability (from 57th in 2007 to 83rd this year),
innovations (dropping by 6 places down to 106th), technological
background, business improvement, goods market efficiency, labor
market efficiency, Yerghnyan said.
Among CIS countries, Armenia is behind Russia (51st position),
Kazakhstan (66th), Azerbaijan (69th), Ukraine (72nd), Georgia (90th)
and Moldova (95th), but is ahead of Tajikistan (116th) and Kyrgyzstan
(122nd).The USA tops the overall Global Competitiveness ranking
followed by Switzerland and Denmark. Sweden, Singapore, Finland,
Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Canada are in the top ten. Great
Britain has dropped out of the top 10 (12th position).
Yerghnyan stressed that the report was prepared before the world
financial crisis and records the pre-crisis condition of the countries’
economies.
World Economic Forum is an independent international organization
that aims at improving world affairs and establishing partnerships
between leaders for forming a global-scale agenda.
"Economy and Values" Research Center is a partner of Global
Competitiveness Network of the World Economic Forum.