India Maintains 43rd Rank on IMD’s World Competitiveness Index

India held the 43rd rank on the Institute for Management Development (IMD)’s annual World Competitiveness Index 2021.

Switzerland led the 64-nation list, followed by Sweden (moved up to the second position from sixth in 2020), Denmark, the Netherlands and Singapore.

Among the BRICS countries, India was ranked second after China (16), followed by Russia (45th), Brazil (57th) and South Africa (62nd).

IMD stated, that for the past three years, India has retained its position and in 2021 the country made a major advancements in government efficiency.

IMD said, “India’s developments in the government efficiency are primarily due to relatively stable public finances (despite COVID-19 induced challenges) and to the optimistic responses we recorded among Indian business stakeholders with respect to the funding and subsidies offered by the government to the private firms.”

It added, in short term, India’s economic recovery would depend on how it manages and addresses the pandemic situation in the country.

The report highlights that factors such as leadership, welfare, investment in innovation, digitalisation, developing social consistency have facilitated countries handle the crisis the best and thus ranked superior in effectiveness.

The report stated top-performing countries are described by diverging amounts of investment in innovation, supportive public policy, economic activities.

The report said, “Capabilities in these areas preceding to the pandemic let these countries to address the economic repercussions of the crisis more successfully.”

The report stated that economies that guaranteed the effectiveness of key public spending, such as business legislation, public finance and tax policy to ease the burden on the markets hit by COVID-19.

IMD World Competitiveness Centre publishes the ranking annually that evaluates the prosperity and competitiveness of 64 nations by assessing four factors – infrastructure, economic performance, business efficiency and government efficiency.

Source: IBEF