‘On the road to progress’
Other Voices
Lindsey Galloway published a research last September in the Economist Intelligence Unit, which follows the leading global Group ‘The Economist’. The topic of the research was about the most livable cities, a serious report published annually for almost the past two decades of 140 of the world’s largest cities taking onto account more than 30 factors such as safety, healthcare, quality of food, beverage options, education and quality of roads and transportation.
Galloway found that while a lot of attention is paid to big cities he decided this year to focus on cities that have been climbing the ladder of rankings over the past decade, looking for the reason for such progress, and what residents say about their city which has become more livable than ever.
Vienna was found to have surpassed Melbourne as the most livable city. He also noted that the capital of Hawaii has seen tremendous progress and Budapest has earned the high ranking for many reasons. It is remarkable that the Kuwait City was ranked third among the best cities to live in due to its high position in several activities, Kuwait continues to progress, having become more open, both commercially and culturally, and has made tremendous improvements in the highway system.
One of its inhabitants said strict laws on arts, music and theater in public places have changed and have become less stringent. Global influences have also begun to emerge in the daily life of Kuwait City, which has long been an important port for international trade.
Some attribute the change to globalization and the culture of the Internet, and the proliferation by international brands of fast food restaurants, but the challenges remain for residents who are not entitled to own real estate and the difficulty of fully owning businesses. With no tax, Kuwait is a great place to work and save money for a few years.
Seven other cities are listed after Kuwait, such as Auckland in New Zealand and Taipei in Taiwan, the report said. On the other hand, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index for 2018 showed Kuwait’s improvement and ranked 47 out of 90 indicators for different sectors, raising the country’s ranking to 54th globally compared to 56th last year. This happens for the first time after the continuous decline we have seen in previous years.
The report showed that Kuwait is ranked first in the world in macroeconomic stability and monitored improvement in institutional indicators such as ‘judicial independence’, ‘freedom of the press’, ‘reducing the burden of laws’ and ‘government regulations’ that negatively affect the competitiveness of the economy.
The report also highlighted the improvement of transport and communication networks in the indices of ‘road quality’ and ‘efficiency of air transport services’. With regard to the development and enhancing the labor market, Kuwait advanced in the labor policies, wages and productivity index.
Kuwait has seen an improvement in alleviating the burden of government regulations and laws, the protection of intellectual property rights, the efficiency of the legal environment in judicial settlements, the quality of land administration, increased digital skills in the population, easy access to skilled labor, and improved wages and productivity. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) financing increased, risk capital availability, non-performing loan ratio (NPL) improved, and credit gap declined and others.
The annual Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) is one of the most important measurement indicators. This is the 14th time in a row that the State of Kuwait is included in the report that measures the competitiveness of 140 countries in the world.
We hope progress will continue, thanks to ministers such as Khalid Al-Roudhan, and Nayef Al-Hajraf and we hope that the establishment of a company will be a matter of days instead of the current sufferings of submitting transactions for the approval of the Kuwait Municipality, the Fire Services Directorate and the Interior Ministry.