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Ireland ranked 7th in world competitiveness: report

Xinhua, June 1, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ireland got the seventh place in the latest world competitiveness rankings of countries and regions, according to a publication released on Tuesday.

In its annual World Competitiveness Yearbook, the Lausanne-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD) said Ireland is ranked 7th in 2016, an improvement of nine places from last year.

The IMD's World Competitiveness Yearbook, published each year since 1989, is an internationally renowned publication which assesses countries across the globe, using over 300 competitiveness indicators. It is widely regarded as the foremost annual assessment of the competitiveness of countries.

The 2016 edition ranks China's Hong Kong first, Switzerland second and the United States third, with Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada completing the top ten.

In the publication, Ireland is regarded as particularly strong in terms of the competitiveness of tax regime, education and skill level of the labor force, business friendly environment, policy stability, strong R&D culture and cost competitiveness.

"This is a significant improvement on 2011 when Ireland was ranked 24th and is Ireland's best ranking since 2000. Ireland is now ranked by the IMD as the most competitive economy in the euro area," said Mary Mitchell O'Connor, minister of jobs, enterprise and innovation.

But the Irish minister said Ireland cannot afford to become complacent about its competitiveness performance.

"The IMD report underlines the importance of maintaining international competitiveness in the context of a resurgent Irish economy. It is also a timely reminder about the need to continuously implement policies to further improve our performance further to ensure job creation across all regions.

"In light of challenges such as Brexit, exchange rate movements and uncertain global growth, we cannot afford to stand still. International competition for export share and inward investment is intense and other countries are constantly improving their competitiveness performance," she said. Endit