India ranks 68th In Global Competitiveness, Down 10 Places Says WEF

Mumbai, October 10: The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently released an insight on the global competitiveness report. Last year the WEF had introduced the new Global Competitiveness Index 4.0, an economic index which is an annual yardstick that has been instrumental for policy-makers to assess their progress with a set of factors that determine productivity. As per the report, India has been placed 10 spots lower in the rank as compared to the last year. This comes on the back of poor performance in some of the criteria, where India do not do that well in certain areas as compared to some other countries. Because of that India now ranks 68th, down 10 places in 2019.

Some of the things in which India ranks low includes labour reforms, worker’s rights and participation of women in the workforce etc. “This assumes greater importance as it is a dynamic world that we are facing where everything is moving or changing, and therefore, to stay where we are, we need to put in huge amount of developmental efforts in a focussed manner. The report is actually points out some basic things to focus on or bring in substantial enhancements,” said Joseph Thomas, Head of Research Emkay Wealth Management. 

However, as per the report it does rank high on macroeconomic stability and market size. The report emphasized that India’s financial sector is relatively deep and stable despite the high delinquency rate, which contributes to weakening the soundness of its banking system. 

“In terms of certain aspects like the market size, the shareholder governance, corporate governance and innovation we have a relatively higher position. While these are some of the important factors, if we look at some of the other parameters, we will find that we rank very low in the list. And many of these parameters are efficiency and competitiveness-facilitators, like low life expectancy, poor health conditions, low level of adoption of information, communications and technology,” explained Thomas. WEF believes that the global economy is ill-prepared for a downturn after a lost decade for productivity-enhancing measures. Also, it highlighted that the shadow of the Great Recession looms large as the economy is predicted to be heading towards major slowdown.