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Friday, April 26, 2024 8:0 GMT
The UAE is leading the Mena region in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2020 for the fourth year in a row, while taking the 9th place among the most competitive countries in the world.The UAE maintained its position among the top 10 competitive countries in the world in 2020, ahead of countries such as the US, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, Germany, and the UK, to be the only Arab country that succeeded in asserting itself in the Big Ten Club in the World Competitiveness Yearbook for four years in a row, since joining the top ten in 2017, despite the challenges of Covid-19 pandemic that influenced the 2020 edition, said a Wam news agency report.The yearbook is issued by the World Competitiveness Centre of the World Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland.According to the results of the report, the UAE ranked first globally in 23 indicators and sub-factors, while it ranked among the top five globally in 59 indicators and in top 10 globally in 106 indicators, out of 338 indicators covered by the report this year.The IMD World competitiveness yearbook 2020 relies on questionnaires collected (33.33%) and on statistics and data provided by countries (66.67%). The report focuses in its classification of the countries on four factors (economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure) with 20 sub-factors each that cover 338 competitive indicators in various economic, financial, legislative, management and social fields, along with some new indicators added in this year’s edition of the yearbook. Some of the new additions reflect the importance of achieving sustainable development objectives, and provide a vision of the economy’s position with respect to the various sustainable objectives that must be met within ten years, such as education, environment, empowerment, ageing and health, the report said.UAE takes the lead in 7 factors At the sub-factors level, the UAE achieved an improvement in 7 factors, ranking at 1st place globally in the labor market factor, and the 5th globally in the employment factor, the 6th place in the pricing factor. The UAE is also advancing in other sub-factors, such as the social framework, education, and technology, health and the environment infrastructures, while maintaining its rank unchanged in two sub-factors, the factor of attributes and values (second in the world) and the factor of tax policy (third in the world).Commenting on the UAE’s performance, Abdullah Nasser Lootah, Director-General of the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, said: "Within the UAE2021 Vision and in preparation for the Golden Jubilee, the UAE is moving forward with an ambitious strategy that anticipates the future, nurture a culture of excellence to be in the lead of world competitiveness at various levels. Thanks to the vision and guidance of the UAE’s leadership, the country managed since 2017 to join the top 10 competitive countries in this report, and to consolidate its well-deserved position among the top ten globally in the overall ranking and regional leadership."Hanan Mansoor Ahli, Executive Director, Competitiveness Sector, said: "The annual change in the ranking of the top ten countries in the yearbook reflects the intensity of the competition between the leading countries in recent years. And thanks to the guidance and support of UAE’s leadership and continuous efforts by the government to enhance the country's world competitiveness, the UAE has succeeded in solidifying its position among the top ten most competitive economies in the world."Fourth in economic performanceDespite the emergency circumstances that the whole world is going through because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the UAE has achieved a balanced performance as it moved forward three places in the economic performance factor, with the Netherlands topping the global ranking, followed by the US and Singapore, while the UAE ranked 4th in the world, moving forward three places comparing to last year's report, ahead of countries such as Germany, China, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Canada, Japan and others.UAE leads the world in 23 indicators The UAE ranked first globally in 23 indicators included in the report within its factors and sub-indicators. In addition, the UAE ranked first globally in the indicators: Bureaucracy absence, immigration laws, redundancy costs, low central government foreign debt, tax evasion, collected personal income tax (%), collected indirect tax revenues (%), real personal taxes, and the percentage of females in parliament, all of which are indicators included in the factor of the government efficiency and its sub-factors.Furthermore, the country ranked first globally in many other indicators such as labour force out of the total population, working hours, competent senior managers, industrial disputes and foreign labour force, all of which are included in business efficiency factor. The UAE once again topped the ranks globally in indicators such as dependency ratio, public-private partnership and environmental laws within the factor of infrastructure and its sub-factors.