IMD World Competitiveness Booklet 2021

Finally, economies with a strong Societal Framework have also performed very well. It measures long- term characteristics such as gender equality and crime (measured by the rate of homicides) as well as non- tangible aspects like social cohesion, justice and equal opportunities. All the Nordic economies in our sample and Switzerland dominate this sub-factor. Before proceeding, it is important to highlight that this year we have the Figure 3 presents the sub-regional overall competitiveness ranking trend for the years 2017 to 2021. Over the past year, Eastern Asia, Western Europe and Ex-CIS and Central Asia achieved an increase in their competitiveness rankings; the other sub-regions experience a decline in their overall average positions. Eastern Asia remains at the top of the sub-regional rankings and with an average competitiveness position of the economies in this area further increasing from 18 th to 17 th , reversing a slowly declining trend started in 2018. Western Europe continues its positive trend started in 2019 and keeps narrowing its competitiveness 2. Regional Level Trends

pleasure of welcoming a 64 th economy to the group that we study: Botswana. In the following sections we review the performance of different economies in this year’s Competitiveness Ranking. Firstly, we examine the different regions and then identify the economies within each region that outperform the average country we study.

gap with Eastern Asia. Over the past year, countries in this sub-region have steadily improved their competitiveness performance, reaching an average 19 th position in 2021. Conversely, North America remains on a declining path in 2021. Since 2016, the competitiveness levels of the countries in this sub-region fell from an average 21 st position in the ranking to an average 26 th this year. Southern Asia and the Pacific experienced a minor decline between 2020 and 2021 from 28 th to 29 th position. In Western Asia and Africa, the decline in competitiveness levels from an average 34 th to 38 th place.

Figure 4. Average factor rank by region, 2021

GovernmentEfficiency

BusinessEfficiency

Infrastructure

EconomicPeformance

0

0

0

0

10

10

10

10

14

16 17

20 20

22

23

20

20

20

20

24 25

24

24 26

25

27

30

33 34

30

30

30

35

36

37

41

42 42

42

40

40

40

40

44

AverageFactorRanking

47

47 49

49

53

53

50

50

50

50

55

57

60

60

60

60

70

70

70

70

19

IMD WORLD COMPETITIVENESS BOOKLET 2021