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SA Improving Competitiveness

South Africa has advanced on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) global competitiveness index and has retained the number one spot in sub-Saharan Africa.

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SA Improving Competitiveness

| News by Staff Reporter

South Africa now ranks 50th in the world and 1st in sub-Saharan Africa

South Africa has advanced on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) global competitiveness index and has retained the number one spot in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the WEF Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012 released on Wednesday 7 September South Africa has improved its ranking by four positions.

“South Africa moves up by four places to attain 50th position this year, remaining the highest-ranked country in sub-Saharan Africa and the second-placed among the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] economies,” said the report.

“It also does well on measures of the quality of institutions and factor allocation, such as intellectual property protection [30th], property rights [30th], the accountability of its private institutions [3rd], and its goods market efficiency [32nd].”

South Africa’s market size was ranked 25th in the world, while financial market development was ranked fourth.

The financial market development was “particularly impressive,” according to the report, showing “high confidence in South Africa’s financial markets at a time when trust is returning only slowly in many other parts of the world.”

South Africa was the most competitive economy in the region, ranking 38th for business sophistication, 41st for innovation, 30th for benefiting from good scientific research institutions, and 26th for strong collaboration between universities and the business sector in innovation.

In other areas, however, South Africa performed weakly, highlighting areas in need of urgent attention.

“South Africa ranks 95th in labour market efficiency, with rigid hiring and firing practices [139th], a lack of flexibility in wage determination by companies [138th], and significant tensions in labour-employer relations [138th],” the report stated.

In addition to this, “Efforts must also be made to increase the university enrolment rate of only 15%, which places the country 97th overall, in order to better develop its innovation potential.”

The report added that poor security in the country, such as business costs of crime and violence (ranking 136th) and feelings of an inadequate police force (95th), do not bode well for a country aiming for competitiveness.

Source: www.bizpremises.co.za