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Malaysia down two rungs in global competitiveness
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has slipped two notches in the global competitiveness ranking this year after being overtaken by Spain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the latest survey by the World Economic Forum.
In the recently published Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) 2019, Malaysia is ranked 27th out of 141 countries in terms of overall score.
Last year, Malaysia was ranked 25th out of 140 countries.
In terms of overall score, Malaysia saw a mere improvement of 0.2 point to 74.6 points this year in the survey that rates economies based on 12 pillars, namely, institutions; infrastructure; information communications technology (ICT) adoption; macro-economic stability; health; skills; product market; labour market; financial system; market size; business dynamism; and innovation capability.
Spain (23rd) and the UAE (25th), which pushed Malaysia down two spots in the CGR ranking, saw improvements of 1.1 and 1.6 points to achieve overall scores of 75.3 and 75 points, respectively.
According to the GCR 2019, Malaysia’s main strengths remained its macro-economic stability, financial system and health of human capital.
Within Asean, Malaysia was ranked second behind Singapore in terms of the overall global competitiveness index (GCI) score this year. Coming in third was Thailand, which ranked 40th globally with an overall GCI score of 68.1 points, and followed by Indonesia, which ranked 50th globally with 64.6 points.
Notably, Singapore also beat out the United States to emerge as the world’s most competitiveness economy for 2019, with an overall GCI score of 84.8 points.
The United States, which took the top rank last year, fell one notch globally with an overall GCI score of 83.7 points.
Hong Kong, which is currently under pressure from 19 straight weeks of anti-government protests, rose four notches to rank third in the GCR 2019, with an overall GCI score of 83.1 points.
In the report, Hong Kong was featured in the top-10 of eight pillars, which was a record, and outperformed the OECD benchmark on every pillar.
“Hong Kong ranks first on four pillars – the most of any economy – in which it is at, or near the frontier score of 100: macro-economic stability (100), health (100), financial system (91.4) and product market (81.6). Furthermore, it ranks third on the infrastructure (94.0) and ICT adoption (89.4) pillars, ” the report said.
“Hong Kong’s biggest weakness is undoubtedly its limited capability to innovate. With a score of 63.4 (26th), it lags behind Singapore (13th) by 12 points. Another differentiating factor between the two economies is the labour market, ” it added.
Here, Hong Kong was penalised for the lack of worker rights’ protection, whereas Singapore had much better workers’ protection score.
Meanwhile, China was ranked 28th in the overall GCI score, just one spot behind Malaysia, and unchanged its position from last year.
The GCR 2019 said, China’s score increased by 1.3 points, driven by a significant boost in ICT adoption.
“China’s strengths obviously include the sheer size of its market and macro-economic stability, ” it said.
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2019/10/16/malaysia-down-two-rungs-in-global-competitiveness#4kK8sW5DAKMdPTlc.99