South Africa slipped one position to 42nd in the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) released on Wednesday by the World Economic Forum (WEF), but this was only because two new countries, Qatar (19) and Kuwait (33), came in above it.
In an unchanged universe, South Africa would have moved up one position to 40th.
South Africa’s real gross domestic product (GDP) as measured from the expenditure side cleared the 6% growth hurdle, as there was a 6,1% quarter-on-quarter increase at a seasonally adjusted annualised (saa) rate in the second quarter of this year after a 4,7% saa increase in the first quarter of 2005, the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) latest quarterly bulletin revealed on Thursday.
The increase in real GDP was not confined to the quarter-on-quarter saa data, as the year- on-year (y/y) increase was an even-higher 6,2% in the second quarter from a 5,3% gain in the first quarter.
The WEF has been producing the GCR for 26 years and each year it tries to expand its coverage.
This year it added Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, East Timor, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Qatar and Tajikistan to give a total of 117 countries.
In a comprehensive review of 155 countries carried out by the World Bank on Doing Business, South Africa was ranked 28th for ease of doing business.
The GCR has a mix of hard and soft data, which has made it possible to capture the broad range of factors seen to be essential to a better understanding of the determinants of growth.
Each year, it provides an overview of the main strengths and weaknesses in a large number of countries, making it possible to identify key areas for reform and policy formulation.
Finland remains the most competitive economy in the world and tops the rankings for the third consecutive year in the GCR. The United States is in second position, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Taiwan and Singapore, in that order.
While most of the countries of the sub-Saharan African region are less competitive, the region does have a number of relative success stories.
This includes South Africa (42nd), Botswana (48th), Mauritius (52nd) and Ghana (59th), the latter’s competitiveness performance being even more notable, having improved by nine places since last year.
Tanzania has also seen a significant improvement over the past year, moving up 11 places in the overall rankings.
On the other hand, Namibia, a relatively good performer overall, lost 11 places over the past year, as, predictably, did Madagascar and Zimbabwe, losing 11 and 10 places respectively.
Zimbabwe is a particularly sad case, whose quick descent to the bottom of the world’s competitiveness rankings reflects the continued deterioration of the institutional climate, including the disappearance of property rights, the corruption of the rule of law, and the implications these and other factors have had for macroeconomic management.
The country has the world’s worst ranking (117th) for the quality of its macroeconomic environment. — I-Net Bridge