"World Competitiveness Index 2021": India maintained 43rd position

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World Competitiveness Index 2021 has been released by the Institute for Management Development (IMD).

About World Competitiveness Index

The World Competitiveness Index is an annual report published since 1989.
Released by: The index is released by the Institute for Management Development (IMD).
Aim: The index ranks 64 economies. It assesses the extent to which a country promotes the prosperity of its people by measuring economic well-being through data and survey responses.
Parameters: The index measures the prosperity and competitiveness of countries by examining four factors:
- Economic performance
- Government efficiency
- Business efficiency
- Infrastructure

Top Rankings: Switzerland has topped the index. It was followed by Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands and Singapore.
Asia: The top-performing Asian economies in order are: Singapore (5^th), Hong Kong (7^th), Taiwan (8^th) and China (16^th).
The UAE and the USA remain in the same spots as last year (9^th and 10^th, respectively)

India’s Ranking: India has maintained the 43^rd rank in the world competitiveness index 2021.
- In 2020, India was ranked 43^rd on the index.
Comparison with BRICS Countries: Among BRICS countries, India was ranked second (43^rd) after China (16^th), followed by Russia (45^th), Brazil (57^th) and South Africa (62^nd).
Performance of India:
- Among the four factors, India made significant improvements in government efficiency this year. These improvements are due to the following reasons:
  - Relatively stable public finances (despite difficulties brought by the pandemic, in 2020 the government deficit stayed at 7 per cent) and
  - Positive feedbacks registered among Indian business executives with respect to the support and subsidies provided by the government to the private companies
- But India’s performance in other parameters such as economic performance, business efficiency and infrastructure remained the same.
Strengths of India: India’s strengths lie in investments in telecoms (1^st), mobile telephone costs (1^st), ICT services exports (3^rd), remuneration in services professions (4^th) and terms of trade index (5^th).
Weaknesses of India: India’s weakness lies in the broadband subscribers (64^th), exposure to particulate pollution (64^th), human development index (64^th), GDP per capita (63^rd) and foreign currency reserves per capita (62^nd).

Also read: World Ease of Doing Business Report

The report finds that

Qualities such as investment in innovation, digitalization, welfare benefits and leadership, resulting in social cohesion, have helped countries to perform better. Thus ranked higher in competitiveness.
Top-performing economies are characterized by varying degrees of investment in innovation, diversified economic activities, and supportive public policy.
Competitive economies succeeded in transitioning to a remote work routine while also allowing remote learning. Addressing unemployment has been fundamental

Source: Business Standard