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Estonia 33rd, Lithuania 47th, Latvia 70th in Global Competitiveness Index

09.09.2010, 11:59

Estonia is 33rd most competitive country in the new world, according to the new competitiveness ranking that was published by the World Economic Forum today. In comparison with last year, Estonia improved its ranking by two places, writes aripaev.ee

Latvia is ranked 70th and has lost two places in a year while Lithuania climbed four places and is now 47th.

The top four were Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore and US. Finland was down one spot to 7th, Denmark was 9th and Norway was 14th.

According to the report, Estonia's score was affected by access to funding, unemployment, tax rates and bureaucracy.

This year's ranking was compiled for the 31st time and covers practically all countries in the world. The authors use twelve measures to rank the countries that are divided according to their GDP and population ratio.

Estonian economist Heido Vitsur says that Estonia climbed up thanks to an unprecedent rise by its macroeconoimc indicators. "Estonia's only strength was that we went from 47th to 18th by macroeconomic indicators. This is unprecedented." The improvement reflects government decisions made during the crisis for keeping the state budget in balance and changing labour market legislation to make the labour market more flexible.

Another reason why Estonia improved its ranking was that while last year Estonia was among innovation-based group of countries, this year's report ranks Estonia to cheap resource-based group of countries that has different weightings. For instance, while macroeconomic stability weighs 40% among resource-based countries, it is only 20% among innovation-based countries.

The Global Competitiveness Index measures states’ opportunities for economic growth and assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to citizens.

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I can see it's about half of the population are working to maintain this small economy. The other half of people are not capable of giving positive input or simply redundant and useless.

Being 33rd could be mostly out of the contribution from these silent half who never expect a better life.

~asialane [11.09.2010, 03:35]

Another important lesson: there are 5 countries (Sweden, Germany, Finland, Netherlands and Denmark) with an extensive social welfare system in the top 10. This proves that the Reform Party's opinion that a decent social policy doesn't go together with economic succes is false.

~Mark [10.09.2010, 18:53]

You know, AR, I am a native-born member of the Hanseatic League, meaning a free citizen, cosmopolitan, commercial daring, solidity, dependability ("handshake" is enough), self-restraint and the ability to self-irony.

Tallinn used to be the port city of trade and change. An evil saying says: the honest merchant sells his grandmother in a poke. The honorable, Hanseatic merchant does the delivery too.

Now I am a resident of Tallinn, which IS an Hanseatic town, but I honeslty don't see much of these virtues left here.

Meanwhile some people here even may be of the World, honesty or do business with a handshake - just forget about it. Also, it lacks much of a sense of justice, instead, people tend to swank around. All in all, a not suitable character for international trade.

But who alienates its customers may not complain about it to be doubted.

~knut albers [09.09.2010, 17:27]