Competitive nations — India ranks 44th

INDIA HAS moved up to 44th position on the IMD’s World Competitiveness Ranking 2018, up one rank from last year. As seen in Chart 1, the US tops the latest ranking, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. China ranks 13th on the list.

The IMD rankings are based on a country’s performance of four key pillars, namely economy, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure. Performance on these is, in turn, measured through other indicators.

On economic performance, which measures a country’s performance in the domestic economy, employment, prices, international trade and investment, the US tops the rankings, followed by China. By comparison, as seen in Chart 2, India ranks 21st.

On government efficiency, Hong Kong tops the list, followed by Switzerland. India ranks 50th on this pillar as seen in Chart 3. On business efficiency too, Hong Kong tops the list as seen in Chart 4. India fares better on this pillar, ranking 29th in 2018. On infrastructure, the US tops the list, followed by Switzerland, while India ranks 56th (Chart 5).

A closer look reveals that India’s ranking on the domestic economy has improved over the past year. As seen in Chart 6, the country now ranks 3rd in the world, up from 5th last year. On international trade too, the country’s ranking has improved, while it has fallen on international investment.

On infrastructure, India moved up four spots in 2018. Much of this improvement, as seen in Chart 7, is due to an increase in the country’s ranking on basic and technological infrastructure.