Vietnam down 5 grades in WEFs global competitive index report
Due to the financial crisis, US dropped from the first to second. Others in top ten of WEF’s report include Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Canada and Netherlands. Amongst developing countries, China continued to lead standing at top 30 of the report. Other newly emerging economies like Brazil and India both increased the competitive index, particular India ups one grade to 49th, and Brazil jumped eight grades to 56th whereas Russia fell 12 grades to 63rd.
The report says that Vietnam’s trade deficit is being widened. Overheated economic growth and the depreciation of the dong reduced belief of investors to an extent. WEF said that Vietnam needs to re-stabilise the macro-economic factors to take other advantages.
Infrastructure quality index of Vietnam stood at 111 among 133 countries, road quality at 102/133, power supply quality at 103/133, trade deficit at 103/133, costs for basic education at 103/133, quality of training schools on management at 111/133, tariff barriers at 126/133, investor protection ability at 126/133. In the south-eastern Asia, Vietnam was ranked at 75th after Singapore (3), Malaysia (24), Brunei (32), Thailand (36), and Indonesia (54) and only before Philippines (87) and Cambodia (110).
Economic professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin from US Columbia University, co-author of the report assessed that in the current crisis period, the important thing is that lawmakers must keep vision on long term competitive strength while countering with short term problems.
Annual Global Competitive Index report of WEF is built based on transparent statistics along with surveying points of views of 13,000 leaders of economic groups.
On September 8, World Bank and International Finance Corp (IFC) in Hanoi announced the report on Business Environment 2010 in Asia Pacific, saying that Vietnam ranks 93rd among 183 surveyed economies, sliding two grades against 2008 despite remarkable reforms in corporate establishment and tax payment. Only two indexes of the business environment of Vietnam including credit lending index and contract implementation are upgraded whereas others downgraded compared with last year’s report. In the region, Vietnam followed Singapore (1), Thailand (12) and Malaysia (23).
