Pakistan continues to languish at the last position: Global Competitiveness Index 2017-18

The 2017-18 Global Competitiveness Report, which compared governance in 137 countries this time as opposed to 138 in the previous year, ranked Pakistan at 115th – 22 places from the bottom, compared to 16th from the bottom last year. Last year, the WEF had conducted survey in 138 nations and Pakistan was placed at 122. Overall, Pakistan jumped seven positions, but the performance remains sub-par when compared with the amount of stress and priority laid on the country’s competitiveness.

Pakistan has improved its overall position by seven places in the influential Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum (WEF), crawling out of the bottom-20, but continued to languish at the last place among South Asian countries, revealed the 2018 report.

On the other hand, India (40th in list) remained the most competitive country in South Asia. The World Economic Forum said that according to the current methodology, India’s score, this year, is the highest ever.

The Global Competitiveness Report’s competitiveness ranking is based on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which was introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2005.  The 2017-18 Global Competitiveness Report compared a total of 137 countries on the basis of 12 categories called ‘pillars of competitiveness’. The 12 parameters are Institutions, Infrastructure, Macroeconomic Environment, Health and Primary Education, Higher Education and Training, Goods Market and Efficiency, Labour Market Efficiency, Financial Market Development, Technological Readiness, Market Size, Business Sophistication, and Innovation.

According to a report, corruption remains the most problematic factor for doing business for the third year in a row. The other parametres which the country ranked low on are primary health and education, and labour market efficiency. Of the parametres Pakistan improved in are institutions pillar, infrastructure and macroeconomic stability.

Pakistan’s ranking at 115 is measured by the twelve pillars of Competitiveness. On the institutions pillar, Pakistan improved 21 ranks and stands at 90 from 111 last year. Infrastructure improved from 116 to 110, on the Macroeconomic Stability Pillar Pakistan improved 10 ranks and stands at 106.

On other pillars, among 137 countries, Pakistan ranks at Health and Primary Education 129, losing one rank from last year, Higher Education and Training improved from 123 to 120, Goods Market Efficiency 107, Labour Market Efficiency 128, Financial Market Sophistication jumped from 107 to 96, Technological Readiness 111. Maintaining the regional competitiveness edge Pakistan ranks at 28 on the pillar of Market Size. Also showing sustained improvements on Business Sophistication the rank changed from 95 last year to 81 in 2017, while on the Innovation pillar an impressive improvement of 15 points now places Pakistan at 60 rank on the global competitiveness index.