The top three are the same as last year, with Switzerland top dog for the fifth year in a row. Among the top ten, the Netherlands fell three places and the United Kingdom dropped two spots to tenth.
The WEF says that Finland’s strengths lie in well-functioning institutions, innovation and health and education services. Weaknesses lie in the small market size, a weak economic outlook and an inflexible labour market.
Business leaders have recently espoused a more negative view of Finland’s economic competitiveness, encouraging moderate wage increases or even pay freezes in order to improve Finnish competitiveness and boost export industries.
Petri Rouvinen of ETLA, the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, says that Finland’s position in the WEF ranking differs significantly from that in the Institute for Management Development’s comparison, which put Finland in 20th spot this spring.
“One explanation for the difference is that the WEF measures longer term and the IMD shorter-term competitiveness,” notes Rouvinen.
The WEF ranks 148 countries across 12 ‘pillars’ that influence economic competitiveness.
They are institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.
The full WEF report is available to read here.
