Singapore Most Competitive Economy

For the second year in a row, Singapore remains the world’s most competitive economy, ahead of Hong Kong and the United States, according to a report issued Friday.

The rankings in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 1998 define which countries have a range of market and factors of production which give them the ability to maintain sustained economic growth.

Countries are ranked according to their openness, government, finance, infrastructure, technology, management, labor and institutions. Nations are given scores in each category, then an average of these factors is taken to evaluate the overall competitiveness.

Singapore and Hong Kong owe their high rankings to the fact that they scored well on all factors, while the United States received top marks for finance, infrastructure, technology and management, the report concluded.

“After the return of Hong Kong to China, business responses remain generally positive about Hong Kong,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development and co-chairman of the advisory board of the Global Competitiveness Report.

“Hong Kong is caught up in the external crisis in the region and is a service provider like Singapore. Both are well-run countries.”

The United States is far and away the most competitive large country. Considering other countries with populations greater than 50 million, Britain ranked fourth overall, followed by Japan in 12th.

Britain, Canada, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway and Luxembourg complete the Top 10 list, followed by Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and Finland, according to the report.