IMD World Competitiveness Booklet 2022

Largest shifts, overall ranking and factor levels In the overall ranking, Croatia experiences this year’s largest increase moving from 59 th to 46 th place while advancing in all competitiveness factors. It progresses in all the components of the Economic Performance factor (32 nd ) particularly in the Domestic Economy (34 th ), International Trade (5 th ) and Prices (15 th ) sub-factors. In addition, in Government Efficiency (46 th ), Croatia performs strongly in all sub-fac- tors with the largest gains in Public Finance (40 th ) and Business Legislation (49 th ). It also improves in all the compo- nents of the Business Efficiency factor (49 th ) with Productivity and Efficiency (37 th ), and Finance (47 th ) displaying the largest increases. In Infrastructure (45 th ), the trend is similar with all sub-factors improving.

(40 th ), International Trade (54 th ), Labor Market (46 th ) and Management Practices (28 th ). Appendix 2 shows the ranking variations of the economies we studied at the factor level during the period between 2021 and 2022. In the Economic Performance factor, Mexico, Peru and Croatia experi- ence the largest gains. Conversely, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Cyprus show the steepest declines in the factor. As regards the Government Efficiency factor, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Lithuania advance the most while Indo- nesia, Jordan and Thailand drop the most places in the factor. On the one hand, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia increase the most positions in Business Efficiency. On the other, Jordan, Malaysia and New Zealand experience the sharpest downturns. In terms of the Infrastructure factor, Croatia, Indonesia and Australia gain the largest number of positions. In contrast, Turkey, the UK and Malaysia fall the most positions in the factor. Coincidentally, while the Economic Performance factor shows the greatest variability at this level, the Infrastructure factor is the most stable factor compared to last year.

Conversely, New Zealand shows the largest drop sliding to 31 st place (from 20 th ) in the overall ranking. It declines in all competitiveness factors with the steepest drops in Economic Performance (47 th ) and Business Efficiency (36 th ). In addition, with the exception of Tax Policy (23 rd ) and Scientific Infrastructure (27 th ) where it increases slightly, New Zealand displays a downturn in all competitiveness sub-factors. The largest falls among sub-factors are in Domestic Economy

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