Summary of World Competitiveness Report

The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking ranks 64 economies and assesses the extent to which
a country promotes the prosperity of its people by measuring economic well-being through hard
data and survey responses from executives. This year, the rankings expose the economic impact
of the pandemic across the globe. The report finds that qualities such as investment in
innovation, digitalization, welfare benefits and leadership resulting in social cohesion have
helped economies better weather the crisis, allowing them to rank higher in competitiveness.

The Global Competitiveness Index is released by the World Economic Forum(WEF). It was
launched in 1979.It ranks the competitiveness landscape of 141 economies through 103
indicators organised into 12 pillars.
These 12 pillars are (1) Institutions (2) Infrastructure (3) ICT adoption (4) Macroeconomic
stability (5) Health (6) Skills (7) Product market (8) Labour market (9) Financial system (10)
Market size (11) Business dynamism and (12) Innovation capability.

India maintained 43rd rank on an annual World Competitiveness Index. The 64-nation list was
led by Switzerland, while Sweden has moved up to the second position (from sixth last year),
Denmark has lost one place to rank third, the Netherlands has retained its fourth place and
Singapore has slipped to the fifth place (from first in 2020).

India has maintained its position for the past three years but this year, it had significant
improvements in government efficiency, IMD said.

The top-performing Asian economies are, in order, Singapore (fifth), Hong Kong (seventh),
Taiwan (eighth) and China (16th).

The report said top-performing economies are characterised by varying degrees of investment in
innovation, diversified economic activities, and supportive public policy, according to the
experts at the World Competitiveness Center.

India's overall ranking in World Competitiveness Index 

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

45 44 43 43 43

When we compare the topmost country , Switzerland has been competing with Singapore in
recent years but the latter has suffered significantly on an economic level during the
pandemic, as it depends on the export and import of services and on people’s mobility, the
report finds.  
The ranking, produced annually by the IMD World Competitiveness Centre, measures the
prosperity and competitiveness of 64 nations by examining four factors -- economic
performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure.