Thailand slips in competitiveness survey
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THAILAND has slipped one place on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and is now ranked 32nd out of 140 economies analysed in a survey released by the World Economic Forum yesterday.
This year’s results reversed the uptrend that the Kingdom had been on in previous years. It rose from 38th place in the GCI 2012-13 report, to 37th the following year, and 31st last year. Singapore is rated second most competitive globally, trailing only Switzerland.
Besides Thailand, the four other largest members of Asean, namely Malaysia (18th, up two this year), Indonesia (37th, down four), the Philippines (47th, up five), and Vietnam (56th, up 12), have improved their showing since 2007, most notably the Philippines, which has leapfrogged 17 places, according to the GCI report.
Although ranked much lower, the other three Asean members included in the survey – Laos (83rd, up 10), Cambodia (90th, up five), and Myanmar (131st, up three) – all move up the ladder this year.
The report also includes a survey of business communities, which cite “government instability/coups” as “the most problematic factors for doing business” in Thailand.
Among the 12 competitiveness categories, Thailand performs worst in the “institutions” pillar, ranking 82nd. It is also rated poorly, in 67th place, in both the “health and primary education” and “labour market efficiency” pillars.
The institutions pillar takes into account property rights, security, undue influence and corruption, checks and balances, public-sector performance, and corporate ethics and governance.
This year’s GCI report, titled “‘New Normal’ Productivity Spells Uncertainty for Global Economy”, highlighted the need for countries to improve their productivity to address the “new normal” of sluggish global growth. “A failure to embrace long-term structural reforms that boost productivity and free up entrepreneurial talent is harming the global economy’s ability to improve living standards, solve persistently high unemployment and generate adequate resilience for future economic downturns,” it said.
Other economies ranked in the top 10 of the GCI, along with Switzerland and Singapore, are the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
