Business
Caribbean competitiveness falls
The World Economic Forum is has flagged security, infrastructure, inefficient resource issues and innovation-lag as main hurdles to the region’s competitiveness.
The larger economies in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Jamaica and the Dominican republic have seen their rankings on the World Economic Forum Global Competitive Index fall.
The report, which was released on Wednesday September 7, indicated that Barbados was the only
Caribbean country of the 142 ranked nations that came in above the 50-mark. Its global competiveness is now ranked at number 42, up one place from last year’s ranking.
Other CARICOM countries which improved their rankings are Trinidad and Tobago, which is now placed
at 81, up three places from 84, and Guyana, which moves up one place to 109.
The Dominican republic is now ranked at 110, down from 101. Jamaica is now ranked at 107, having plunged 12 levels.
According to the World Economic Forum, faced the following challenges:
* lack of physical security (the World Economic Forum even attributed Jamaica’s fall in the ranking mainly to its deterioration in security)
* an inefficient allocation of production and human resources infrastructure
* poor development of infrastructure
* and a lag in innovation against other more developed, but also emerging, economies.
“Addressing these challenges in the next decade will be crucial to ensure the economic and social progress of the region,” stated the World Economic Forum.
The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey,
a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum with its network of partner
institutes. This year, over 14,000 business leaders were polled in a record 142 economies.
The survey is designed to capture a broad range of factors affecting an economy’s business
climate.
