Vietnam up in global competitive rankings
(VOV) - Vietnam has jumped five notches to 70th among 148 economies listed in the World Economic Forum’s 2013-2014 Global Competitiveness Report.
According to the report, Vietnam’s macroeconomic environment was improved considerably, rising almost 20% to 87th position. Inflation was brought under control to a single-digit figure in 2012, alongside improved quality of transport and energy infrastructure.
Vietnam also advanced in the goods market efficiency pillar, up 17 notches to 74th, thanks to lower trade barriers and a less heavy tax rate on businesses.
Despite these encouraging developments, the foundation of Vietnam’s economy and prosperity remains fragile, the report says.
The country ranked no higher than 57th in any of the pillars except the market size pillar (36th). It was down in several areas of the Index, including labour market efficiency (56th, down five) and financial market development (93rd, down five).
Another area of concern was technological readiness (102nd down four). Although new technologies are spreading amongst the population, Vietnamese businesses are particularly slow to adopt the latest technologies for their business use (128th), thus forfeiting significant productivity gains through technological transfer.
The top ten economies in the report are Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, Germany, the US, Sweden, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Japan, and the UK.