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Ireland 7th most competitive country in latest IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook rankings

The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) today welcomed Ireland’s improvement in the IMD’s latest international competitiveness rankings. The IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook is an internationally renowned publication which assesses 61 countries, using over 300 competitiveness indicators, and ranks and analyses the ability of nations to create and maintain an environment in which enterprises can compete.
Ireland is ranked 7th in 2016, an improvement of 9 places from last year. This is a significant improvement on 2011 when Ireland was ranked 24th, and represents Ireland’s highest ranking since 2001.
Speaking today, Prof Peter Clinch, Chairman of the NCC commented: “These results are extremely positive and reflect all of the hard work and reforms undertaken across the policy system over recent years to improve the environment for enterprise. Even more so, these results reflect the economic sacrifices made by the Irish people, and the resilience of our enterprise sector”.
He continued: “However, while we should be pleased that Ireland’s improving competitiveness is recognised globally, we cannot afford to become complacent about our performance or relax our efforts to drive improvements. Competitiveness is a dynamic and relative concept, and all of our key trading partners are seeking to improve their business environments too. We must ensure that as growth continues, capacity constraints and structural issues do not derail progress”.
The Council has highlighted a number of themes from the IMD report which particularly resonate with their own analysis, including the need to:
· Continue to focus on tackling unemployment – especially youth and long term unemployment, whilst also boosting participation in the labour market;
· Prioritise and target capital investment in competitiveness and productivity enhancing infrastructure;
· Improving access to credit for enterprise, particularly in the area of alternate, non-bank sources of finance;
· Diversify our enterprise base, expanding into new market and sectors;
· Address residential property issues;
· Maintain vigilance in relation to public finances, ensuring a broad, enterprise-friendly tax regime is in place;
· Continue to address the enterprise cost base – focusing on areas where Irish costs are out of line - which provides a vital underpinning to exporting sectors;
· Maximise the impact of investment in R&D; and
· Improve energy efficiency and make further progress in meeting our international environmental targets.
Prof Clinch concluded: “Amongst all of the good news in the IMD figures, a number of urgent challenges are also evident. Indeed, the issues emerging from the IMD analysis mirror many of the concerns of the Council, and reflect the analysis in our forthcoming Competitiveness Scorecard report which we will shortly be submitting to Government. We also intend to bring forward policy recommendations to Government later in the year in our annual Competitiveness Challenge report”.
ENDS
For further information contact Press Office, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Phone: 01- 6312200; e-mail: press.office@competitiveness.ie
KEY FINDINGS FROM IMD WORLD COMPETITIVENESS YEARBOOK
· The annual IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) assesses the ability of nations to create and maintain an environment in which enterprises can compete globally
· Ireland’s overall competitiveness ranking improved from 16th in 2015 to 7th in 2016 (out of 61 economies assessed)
· Ireland is now the most competitive country in the Euro area and 3rd most competitive in the EU28
· This is Ireland’s best performance since 2001
· The 2016 ranking sees Hong Kong ranked in first place. The rest of the top ten consists of Switzerland, US, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, and Canada
· The IMD uses four key dimensions to assess performance. Ireland is ranked:
ú 6th in terms of Economic Performance - up 6 places on 2015
o Within this, Ireland is ranked 3rd in terms of the domestic economy, 10th for international trade, 3rd for international investment, 48th for employment and 25th for prices
ú 13th for Government Efficiency - up 2 places on 2015
o Looking at the sub-indices, Ireland is ranked 33rd in terms of public finances, 12th in terms of fiscal policy, 21st for institutional framework, 5 for business legislation and 15th for societal framework
ú 2nd for Business Efficiency - up 11 places on 2015
o Ireland is ranked 1st for productivity, 19th in terms of the labour market, 18th for finance, 6th for management practices and 2nd for attitudes and values
ú 23rd in terms of Infrastructure - up 1 place on 2015
o The sub-indices here show that Ireland is ranked 40th for basic infrastructure, 19th for technological infrastructure, 21st for scientific infrastructure, 13th for health and environment and 18th for education