Roundup: Bangladesh ranked 107th in global competitiveness index

Bangladesh's competitiveness among global economies has slightly improved to 107 out of 109 in rankings published yearly by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The country ranked 107 this year, from last year's position 109, among 140 countries in the world, the report of World Economic Forum said.

Bangladesh's leading think-tank Centro for Policy Dialogue (CPD) disclosed this year's ranking on behalf of the Geneva-based body at a press conference in Dhaka Wednesday.

The report says that the list of top 10 countries including Switzerland, Singapore, the United States, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, China's Hong Kong, Finland, Sweden and Britain remain unchanged but rankings of a few countries have changed.

In Europe, Spain, Italy, Portugal and France have made significant strides in bolstering competitiveness.

Among the larger emerging markets, according to the report, the trend is for the most part of one of decline or stagnation.

Among BRICS countries, it said three economies including Russia (45th) South Africa (49th)and India (55th) advanced, while China remained in last year's position (28th) and Brazil (75th) decelerated.

"China's new normal is an issue of concern despite having strong economic foundation," Khandaker Golam Moazzem, additional research director of CPD, said while launching the report.

He said competitiveness dynamics across Asia is bright but mixed in Southeast Asia.

Among other South Asian countries, according to the report, Sri Lanka performs well. It has achieved improvement by five notches and attained the 68th position in GCR-2015 compared to the 73rd last year.

In South Asia, Pakistan ranked 126th in 2015, Nepal 100th, and Bhutan 105th.

Regarding Bangladesh, the report says the country has advanced mainly due to better performance in "basic requirements" but at the cost of weakening "efficiency enhancers".

It says major improvements discerned in case of macroeconomic stability, infrastructure and market size.

"Governance and institutions are still in weak state and are cause for growing concern for businesses in medium to long term."

Apart from this, it said "major problematic factors like infrastructure, corruption and weak management remain the same."

Unless the needed reforms in financial sector, governance, education are undertaken, Moazzem in his concluding remarks said, "it will be difficult for Bangladesh to move forward in a highly competitive world." Endi