Global Competitiveness Report (2011-2012):
Sri Lanka in great leap forward
A top riser in the Asian region:
*Shows improvements on 80pc of
indicators
*Improvement �remarkable� in
�security� pillar
Sri Lanka has made an impressive jump of 10 places to 52nd from 62nd
in the rankings of the latest Global Competitiveness Report (2011-2012)
issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
This is a further improvement from the 2009-2010 report which ranked
the country at 79th position while last year�s report (2010-2011) placed
Sri Lanka at 62nd, said the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS)
which was the Sri Lankan partner institute in conducting the Executive
Opinion Survey in building the GCR rankings. The WEF economists when
speaking to all partner institutes specifically mentioned Sri Lanka as
having performed strongly in rising up the rankings, and added it is
among the top risers in the Asian region, IPS said.
�Sri Lanka has made a remarkable performance. When I look at the
evolution across all indicators, Sri Lanka shows improvements on 80% of
them - 80-90 of the 110 indicators - both in terms of scores as well as
rank,� quoting WEF�s Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance
Associate Director Thierry Geiger IPS said.
�Last year was a big jump. In the last GCR, Sri Lanka improved its
score by 0.24 points which we consider a big jump.�
This year the score improvement was not as big as last year, but
there is consistency,� Geiger added.
Sri Lanka made the greatest improvements in scores, year-on-year, in
the pillars of �macroeconomic stability� (up by 0.48 points) and
�infrastructure� (up by 0.33 points). Meanwhile, the most noteworthy
decline in scores was in the pillar of �labour market efficiency� (down
by 0.11 points). Geiger noted that the pillar of �red tape� has improved
significantly from a score of 3.8 to 5.1 (rising from rank of 113 to
59).
An improvement of 0.8 is seen in the �security� pillar, which the WEF
economist noted was �remarkable�, and attributed it to the improved
climate following the end of the war. |