Country Competitivenes - Sri Lanka
As opposed to a 10-place jump in the previous year, Sri Lanka has suffered a 16-place relegation in the latest Global Competitiveness Rankings list released by the influential World Economic Forum (WEF) yesterday.
Sri Lanka’s rank of 68th place out of 144 countries surveyed from 52nd place in the previous year was despite the overall score changing marginally to 4.2 points from 4.3. WEF assess a country’s competitiveness using 12 broad pillars – institutions, infrastructure, macro-economic 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. Sri Lanka suffered dip in seven of the 12 pillars. In the 2010/11 rankings Sri Lanka was placed at 62 and the jump last year to 52nd place was showcased by the Government as an endorsement as well as reflective of its sound macro-economic management, development and policies. As per the WEF’s analysis, it is the deterioration in the macro-economic environment that had led to the downgrade in the latest ranking. On macro-economic environment, Sri Lanka’s rank was 127, down from 116 last year. The other notable decline was in labour market efficiency, with Sri Lanka placed at 129 in latest ranking as opposed to 117 in the previous year.
Under macro-economic environment issues factored in are government budget balance, gross national savings, inflation, interest rate spread, government debt and country credit rating. Under labour market efficiency factors considered are cooperation in labour-employee relations, flexibility of wage determination, rigidity of employment index, hiring and firing practices, redundancy costs, pay and productivity, reliance on professional management, brain drain and women in labour force.
As per WEF’s latest rankings, Switzerland was placed as the world’s most competitive economy for the fourth year running, while
Sri Lanka’s rank of 68th place out of 144 countries surveyed from 52nd place in the previous year was despite the overall score changing marginally to 4.2 points from 4.3. WEF assess a country’s competitiveness using 12 broad pillars – institutions, infrastructure, macro-economic 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. Sri Lanka suffered dip in seven of the 12 pillars. In the 2010/11 rankings Sri Lanka was placed at 62 and the jump last year to 52nd place was showcased by the Government as an endorsement as well as reflective of its sound macro-economic management, development and policies. As per the WEF’s analysis, it is the deterioration in the macro-economic environment that had led to the downgrade in the latest ranking. On macro-economic environment, Sri Lanka’s rank was 127, down from 116 last year. The other notable decline was in labour market efficiency, with Sri Lanka placed at 129 in latest ranking as opposed to 117 in the previous year.
Under macro-economic environment issues factored in are government budget balance, gross national savings, inflation, interest rate spread, government debt and country credit rating. Under labour market efficiency factors considered are cooperation in labour-employee relations, flexibility of wage determination, rigidity of employment index, hiring and firing practices, redundancy costs, pay and productivity, reliance on professional management, brain drain and women in labour force.
As per WEF’s latest rankings, Switzerland was placed as the world’s most competitive economy for the fourth year running, while