Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept 7 /Trend/
Azerbaijan has significantly improved its competitive position in the ranking of world economies, head of department of economic policy analysis and forecasting of the Ministry of Economic Development of Azerbaijan Adalat Muradov told Trend on Friday.
Azerbaijan was among the top 50 most competitive economies in the world and was 46th out of 144 countries in the ranking of competitive economies in the world for 2012-2013, compiled annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
"Compared to last year's report, Azerbaijan has improved its position by nine places which is another indicator of the successful economic policy being pursued by the head of the state," Muradov said.
The largest increase compared to the previous year was recorded in Azerbaijan in terms of efficiency of the commodity market up by 19 places.
"In terms of innovation capacity, Azerbaijan's rating rose by 14 degrees, the technological level - 13 degrees and quality of institutions - five degrees. In terms of macroeconomic stability, Azerbaijan is in the top 20 at 18th and that is very good" Muradov said.
Azerbaijan is the leader in the CIS by the index of competitiveness for the fourth year followed by Kazakhstan, Russia and the Ukraine.
"Only Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia and Tadzhikstan, improved their positions except Azerbaijan among CIS countries since 2005. Thus, Azerbaijan rose by 23 positions, Ukraine - 11, Kazakhstan - 10, Russia - 8 and Tajikistan - 4. In other words, Azerbaijan leads also in terms of improving rankings," Muradov said.
In calculating the index of competitiveness of each country, the WEF uses 12 key indicators - the quality of institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological level, the volume of the internal market , competitiveness and innovation.