Vietnam ranks 77/140 in Global Competitiveness Index

(Photo: World Economic Forum)

The analysis presented in the Global Competitiveness Report 2018 is based on a methodology integrating the latest statistics from international organizations and a survey of executives.

This year, WEF used a brand new methodology to fully capture the dynamics of the global economy in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, many of the factors that will have the greatest impact in driving competitiveness in the future have never been the focus of major policy decisions in the past. These include idea generation, entrepreneurial culture, openness, and agility.

Under the new method Vietnam earned 58.1 points, a slight increase over 57.9 points in 2017.

The country dropped three places (74/135) from the 2017 rankings and was the sixth most competitive economy in Southeast Asia.

Within the region, The country behind neighbours Singapore (second), Malaysia (25th), Thailand (38th), Indonesia (45th) and the Philippines (56th), but ahead of Brunei Darussalam (62nd), Cambodia (110th) and Laos (112th).

According to the report, the new tool maps the competitiveness landscape of 140 economies through 98 indicators organised into 12 pillars. For each indicator, using a scale from 0 to 100, it indicates how close an economy is to the ideal state or “frontier” of competitiveness. When combining these factors, the US achieves the best overall performance with a score of 85.6, ahead of Singapore and Germany. The average score for the world is 60, 40 points away from the frontier.

The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) is based on 12 pillars: institutions, infrastructure, information and communication technology adoption, macroeconomic stability, health, skills, product market, labour market, financial system, market size, business dynamism and innovation capacity.

Of these 12 areas, Vietnam’s health dimension was evaluated highest at 81 points, ranked 68th out of 140. Market size hit 71 points, ranked 29th, and macroeconomic stability reached 75 points, ranked 64th.

The country was ranked lowest in product market at 102nd while business dynamism at 101st and skills at 97th.

In the remaining categories, institutions ranked 94th and information and communication technology adoption ranked 95th. Creative capacity reached the lowest score with just 33 points but still ranked 82nd out of 140 countries.

The US topped this year’s WEF Global Competitiveness Report. Singapore ranked second and Germany took the third spot, followed by Switzerland and Japan.