IMD World Competitiveness Booklet 2020

result of a decreasing performance in international trade, employment and measures within the labor market. Furthermore, China shows declines in management practices, and in its technological and scientific infrastructures. As indicated previously, Singapore heads the overall ranking and thus the Southern Asia and the Pacific sub-region. The Philippines displays the only improvement elsewhere in this sub-region, increasing slightly from 46 th to 45 th mainly due to an increase in international trade and a steady performance of its labor market. Australia remains in 18 th position, and India does not budge from its 43 rd spot. Other countries in the sub-region decline. New Zealand drops from 21 st to 22 nd . Similarly, Thailand declines from 25 th to 29 th , largely because of a below-par economic performance particularly in international investment, employment and its labor market. Likewise, Malaysia moves down from 22 nd to 27 th and Indonesia from 32 nd to 40 th . Southern Asia and the Pacific

improvements in international trade, employment, labor market, efficient public finance and productivity. Greece also performs strongly this year increasing to 49 th place from the 58 th . However, despite such a display, Greece remains the lowest-ranked country in the sub-region. Austria increases to 16 th from 19 th place and the United Kingdom improves – from 23 rd to 19 th . Finland (13 th ), Belgium (25 th ) and Portugal (37 th ) all improve by two positions. By contrast, Germany (17 th ), Spain (36 th ) and Italy (44 th ) all remain in the same position. Meanwhile, Ireland drops out of the top 10, moving down from 7 th position to 12 th . This is as a result mainly of declines in international trade and investment, and in its economic performance in general. Similarly, Luxembourg sees a decline by falling to 15 th place (from 12 th ). Iceland experiences a slight drop from 20 th to 21 st , and France from 31 st to 32 nd position. Eastern European sub-region, experiencing an advancement from 35 th place to 28 th mainly due to improvements in its economic performance particularly in terms of international investments, employment and institutional framework (e.g., rule of law). Slovenia also increases in the ranking to 35 th position (from 37 th ). Eastern Europe Estonia leads the

Western Europe

Cyprus experiences the largest improvement in the ranking, rising to 30 th position from 41 st . This performance is partly due to a strong economic performance based on

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IMD WORLD COMPETITIVENESS BOOKLET 2020