Sri Lanka’s rank improved in global competitiveness

Hiran H.Senewiratne

The Global Competitiveness Report reveals that Sri Lanka’s rank has improved where the global competitiveness is concerned registering the 70th position out of 131 countries.

“Last year Sri Lanka was ranked 81 out of the 122 countries. This is a good indication that Sri Lanka is becoming competitive in the global arena,” the Chief Economist in the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) Gayathri Gunaruwan said at a seminar. The event was organised by the CCC on the topic `How Competitive is Sri Lanka for Business’.

Gunaruwan said that in the World Economic forum it takes two indices on Global Competitiveness and Business Competitiveness. She emphasized on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which look at macro and micro economic aspects calculated on 100 variables.

According to her GCI looks into 12 main areas in measuring the country’s competitiveness globally and Sri Lanka has done better in certain sectors compared to last year.

The areas that have been taken into consideration were innovation, business sophistication, market size, technological readiness, finance market sophistication, labor market efficacy and good market efficiency.

According to the report Sri Lanka has improved in certain sectors such as higher education, training, health and primary education sectors compared to last year. This is due to the Government’s commitment towards these sectors.

The report further reveals that Sri Lanka has not performed well in certain areas like labor market efficiencies and micro economic stability.

“Today we witness various indices in the world, which are some times not accurate. GCI has some short coming in reporting and areas where Sri Lanka have performed well have been ranked as not satisfactory especially the telecommunication sector,” Executive Director, Institute of Policy Studies, Dr Saman Kelegama said.

Dr Kelegama said that this sector is one of the efficient and rapidly growing sectors in the region. He added that certain areas like venture capital sector is not doing well in Sri Lanka but the ranking has improved.

Chairman/MD, Dankotuwa Porcelain Limited, Sunil Wijesinha also said that Sri Lanka always highlights good news where the reports are concerned and Sri Lanka has a factor driven economy.