Phl competitiveness ranking improves in 2015

The Philippines’ ranking went up a notch to 41st in the 2015 World Competitiveness Yearbook ( WCY) of business school International Institute for Management Development ( IMD) as it showed improvements in the four broad competitiveness factors tracked by the report.

The WCY ranked 61 economies based on four broad factors to measure competitiveness such as economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure, using various international and national sources as well as an opinion survey.

The WCY results released by the IMD’s Philippine partner institute AIM Policy Center for Competitiveness yesterday showed the country’s ranking posted the largest increase in terms of government efficiency to reach 36th this year from 40th last year.

“Most of this improvement was accounted for by fi scal discipline,” the AIM Policy Center for Competitiveness said in a statement.

This, as debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio went down to 0.45 in 2014 – the lowest level in decades; while defi cit as share of GDP stood at 0.57 percent, the lowest since 2007.

Outstanding debt also grew by 1.1 percent last year, much slower than the 4.4 percent and 9.8 percent in the previous two years.

In terms of the economic performance factor, the country’s ranking rose by three places to 34th this year from 37th last year.

While the Philippines’ gross domestic product growth declined to 6.1 percent last year from 7.2 percent in 2013, it remained the fifth highest among WCY countries.

The 66-percent growth in net foreign direct investments and controlled infl ation rate were also contributors to the improved ranking in the economic performance factor.

The country’s business efficiency ranking meanwhile, climbed to the 26th spot this year from 27th a year ago.

For infrastructure which was consistently the lowest- ranked factor, the Philippine ranking inched up to 57th place this year from the previous year’s 59th.

After ranking 12th out of 13 Asia Pacific economies last year, the Philippines stepped up to 11th this year.

Out of the five Southeast Asian economies covered, the Philippines placed fourth, ahead of Indonesia (42nd), but behind Singapore (3rd) Malaysia (14th) and Thailand (30th).

Overall, the US topped this year’s WCY list and was followed by Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland.