Finland On Top In Economic Competition

According to the World Economic Forums ranking, for the second straight year the most competitive economy is Finlands one.

(PRWEB) October 16, 2004 -- According to the World Economic Forums ranking, for the second straight year the most competitive economy is Finlands one.

Finland hit the top for the quality of its public institutions and the high levels of innovation nurtured by its private sector, WEF said.
The second position was taken by the U.S., as well as in 2003, and then Sweden, Taiwan and Denmark followed the leaders. Chad ended up the list of 104 nations.

Three Nordic countries took the first five positions, showing the best results for the region. "The Nordic countries are characterised by excellent macroeconomic management overall," said Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief economist and director of the WEF's Global Competitiveness Programme. "They are all running budget surpluses - they have extremely low levels of corruption, with their firms operating in a legal environment in which there is widespread respect for contracts and the rule of law, and their private sectors are on the forefront of technological innovation," he added.

The U.S. with its second place was praised for its technological supremacy, but criticized for a weaker performance within public institutions.

The UK has reached 11th place as compared with the last years 15th place as, on the one hand, promoting a good business environment, and, other hand, having poor infrastructure and inadequately-educated workforce.

Italy showed unexpectedly poor result with its 47th position. ``Italy's worsening performance affects all areas, with particularly sharp drops in the area of public institution quality,'' says WEF report.

Japan this year performed better reaching 9th place after the prior years 11th. ``Japan has continued to scale positions,'' said Augusto Lopez- Claros. ``The recovery in Japanese business sentiment has been remarkable,'' he added.

South Africa (41) appeared to be as the most competitive African economy and Chile (22) is the most competitive South American economy.

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