Czech Republic ranked 33rd in World Competitiveness Ranking, highest among V4
The Czech Republic has for a second consecutive year ranked 33rd in Swiss research group IMD’s World Competitiveness Ranking. The country again ranked highest among the Visegrad Four countries, ahead of Poland (39th), Hungary (47th) and Slovakia (57th), which dropped four places.
The annual rankings measure “global economies and their ability to generate prosperity”, according to IMD’s website. The 2020 results, which ranked the performance of the economies of 63 countries in the world, are a combination of hard data gathered in 2019 and survey responses from earlier this year.
The IMD does not release detailed information on the individual countries analyzed and ranked but notes economy’s that “competitiveness cannot be reduced only to GDP and productivity because enterprises also have to cope with political, social and cultural dimensions”.
For the second year in a row, Singapore tops of the World Competitiveness ranking. Second place went to Denmark, followed by Switzerland. The United States dropped from 3rd to 10th place. China finished in 20th spot, down six places.
The IMD said factors behind Singapore’s success are its strong economic performance, which stems from robust international trade and investment, employment and labour market measures. Stable performances in both its education system and technological infrastructure – telecommunications, internet bandwidth speed and high-tech exports – also play key roles.
Denmark, in 2nd, can credit a strong economy, labour market, and health and education systems. In addition, the country performs very well in international investment and productivity, and topped Europe in business efficiency.
Switzerland has been gradually edging towards a podium position, from 5th to 4th and now 3rd in 2020. Robust international trade fuels its strong economic performance, whilst its scientific infrastructure and health and education systems show steadfast displays.
The Czech Republic’s ranking is in line with the latest such assessment by the World Economic Forum, whose Global Competitiveness Report placed the country in 32nd place out of 141. The WEF’s 2020 ranking is due to be published in October.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Czech economy is set for the world’s fifth largest downturn this year, according to a report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Only the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and France will be harder hit in 2020, the OECD said in a recent report. However, while Czech GDP will contract by 9.6 percent this year it should expand by 7.7 percent in 2021, the OECD said.
