According to a new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF), India has slipped by one rank in the world competitive ranking from 39th last year to 40th this year. Moreover India ranks extremely poor in providing business environment to investors.

The "Global Competitiveness Report 2017-18" further states that among 137 countries it analyzed India ranks 98th in intensity of local competition, 124th in total tax rate, 131st in number of procedures to start business, 110th in time taken to start new business, 124th in trade tariffs, 118th in imports as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), 104th in flexibility of wage determination, 129th in female participation in labour force, 111th in exports as percentage of GDP, and so on.

In the report, WEF ranked world’s most competitive economies where Swiss economy comes at top followed by the U.S and Singapore. India on same parameters slipped to 40th place from 39th in last year, while its neighbors China and Pakista stands at 15th and 115th place respectively.

[caption id="attachment_121865" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Countries ranked by national competitiveness in 2017-2018. Via - Statista[/caption]

Prepared by Prof Klaus Schwab, WEF editor, and Prof Xavier Sala-i-Martín of the Columbia University, who is chief advisor, the report states, while India, along with China and Indonesia, is “becoming a centre for innovation, "catching up with advanced economies”, there is still a need for “increasing the readiness of their people and firms to adopt new technology, which is necessary to widely spread innovation’s potential economic and societal benefits.”
WEF says, “Asian economies were less exposed to the global financial crisis, but they are facing new problems of their own”, underlining, “Amid a private-sector credit boom in India, the proportion of loans classed as non-performing went from 4 percent to 9 percent in two years."

Related Reading - India is World’s 40th Most Competitive Economy: World Economic Forum

Among India's growing centres of innovations, the report says, "Three Indian locations appear in the top 100: Bengaluru at 43rd (with patent activity focused on computer technology), Mumbai at 95th, and Pune at 96th (both registering among the most patents in organic fine chemistry)." However, they are far behind Shenzen–Hong Kong, ranking 2nd place, and Beijing 7th, it adds.

The report further says that the level of technological readiness of individuals and firms in India, as in China and Indonesia, remains "relatively low", suggesting that the benefits of these innovative activities are "not widely shared" and "societal gains from innovation breakthroughs do not happen automatically: they need complementary efforts to ensure that more people and firms have the means to access and use new technologies."
Advertisements

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post
Like this content? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get latest updates.