SINGAPORE (Oct 6): Singapore has slipped one spot down, placing third on World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index rankings.
While that is hardly a disaster as the republic had been ranked seventh or worse from 2000/01 to 2006/07, some of the details in the report do raise concerns.
In some of the areas in which Singapore was relatively poorly ranked, the WEF boffins may have had a somewhat eccentric reading of the facts.
Singapore was penalised for its apparently high ratio of government debt to GDP and unbalanced proportion of women in labour force. It also ranked badly in terms of inflation, bad performances in strange areas such as tuberculosis cases and the business cost of terrorism, as well as the size of its GDP and domestic market.
Despite some glitches, the WEF report does provide insights into areas of weakness that should be addressed. This includes innovation capacity, quality of scientific research institutions, company spending on R&D and patents.
The WEF study highlights some potential problems that must be tackled before they become serious impediments to growth. And the best time to address a problem is when it is still emerging and thus more easily resolvable.
But what needs to be done?
Read more in this week’s issue of The Edge Singapore (Issue 800) which is on sale now.
