IMD World Competitiveness Booklet 2023

Figure 1: Most important trends impacting business in 2023 according to executives (IMD Executive Opinion Survey, 2023)

Risk of global economic recession/slowdown

Inflationary pressures

Effects of global warming

The prolonged presence of COVID-19

Geopolitical conflicts

Socio-economic disparities (income, gender, racial, etc)

Supply chain bottlenecks

Energy security

Remote work and hybrid work models

Transition to net-zero emissions and decarbonization

(first), management practices (sixth), and education (ninth). In the productivity and efficiency sub-factor, it drops to 12 th (from sixth), and in the labor market sub-factor to 24 th (from 20 th ). Hong Kong SAR strongly advances in portfolio investment liabilities (29 th ). It also rises in access to financial services – gender ratio (13 th ). In addition, it progresses in health infrastructure (18 th ), the adaptability of government policy (14 th ), transparency (ninth), and social cohe sion (36 th ). Furthermore, it advances in attracting foreign highly skilled personnel (23 rd ), in the management of cities (third), and youth exclusion (10 th ). Hong Kong SAR experiences declines in the use of digital tools and technologies (22 nd from 14 th ), customer satisfaction (23 rd from 15 th ), and part-time employment (34 th from 24 th ). It also sees significant declines in real GDP growth and per capita real GDP growth (down to 64 th in both), government budget surplus/deficit (49 th ), and real growth of overall productivity PPP (50 th ). Sweden remains a highly competitive economy ranking eighth overall, although

this represents a drop of four spots when compared to last year’s ranking. The drop is mainly due to a decline or stagnation in all the competitiveness sub-factors with the largest decrease being in the labor market (16 th from fourth). In any case, at the factor level, Sweden performs strongly in infrastructure and business efficiency, ranking fourth and sixth respectively. However, while its government efficiency factor ranking drops to 14 th , the country’s economic performance factor ranking falls to 28 th (from 21 st ). Despite declines, Sweden continues to perform well in several sub-factors such as institutional framework (fifth from fourth), societal framework (sixth from fifth), produc tivity and efficiency (eighth from fourth), management practices (eighth from third), and education (eighth from fifth). Although Sweden significantly improves in a number of indicators, including direct investment flows inward (ninth), labor productivity (sixth), and portfolio investment assets (11 th ), the country also declines in a wide range of areas such as whether stock markets provide

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