Tajikistan has improved by 11 positions in the overall rankings in the Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012 published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Asia-Plus reported.
WEF ranked Tajikistan 105th among 142 major and emerging economies.
Switzerland tops the overall rankings in The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012. Singapore overtakes Sweden for second position. Northern and Western European countries dominate the top 10 with Sweden (3rd), Finland (4th), Germany (6th), the Netherlands (7th), Denmark (8th) and the United Kingdom (10th). Japan remains the second-ranked Asian economy at 9th place, despite falling three places since last year.
The United States continues its decline for the third year in a row, falling one more place to fifth position.
Germany maintains a strong position within the Eurozone, although it goes down one position to sixth place, while the Netherlands (7th) improves by one position in the rankings, France drops three places to 18th, and Greece continues its downward trend to 90th. Competitiveness-enhancing reforms will play a key role in revitalizing growth in the region and tackling its key challenges, fiscal consolidation and persistent unemployment.
The results show that while competitiveness in advanced economies has stagnated over the past seven years, in many emerging markets it has improved, placing their growth on a more stable footing and mirroring the shift in economic activity from advanced to emerging economies.
China (26th) continues to lead the way among large developing economies, improving by one more place and solidifying its position among the top 30.
As a whole, the CIS member nations have improved their positions in the rankings, just Russia (66th) experiences small declines.
Kazakhstan remains 72nd, Ukraine improves by seven positions to 82nd and Armenia improves by six positions to 92nd.
The Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. The first report was released in 1979. The 2009-2010 report covered 133 major and emerging economies, down from 134 considered in the 2008-2009 report.
The report "assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens. This in turn depends on how productively a country uses available resources. Therefore, the Global Competitiveness Index measures the set of institutions, policies, and factors that set the sustainable current and medium-term levels of economic prosperity."
The concept of competitiveness thus involves static and dynamic components: although the productivity of a country determines its ability to sustain a high level of income, it is also one of the central determinants of its returns to investment, which is one of the key factors explaining an economy's growth potential. These components are grouped into 12 pillars of competitiveness: 1) institutions; 2) infrastructure; 3) macroeconomic environment; 4) health and primary education; 5) higher education and training; 6) goods market efficiency; 7) labor market efficiency; 8) financial market development; 9) technological readiness; 10) market size; 11) business sophistication; and 12) innovation.