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Malta slips one place in WEF global competitiveness ranking
Country performs well in provision of health, primary education and technological readiness, but executives report government bureacracy as main stumbling block to competitiveness
30 September 2015, 9:29am
Matthew Vella
Matthew Vella
1 min read
Malta has been ranked 48 out of a competitiveness index for 140 countries, slipping down one place from 47 in the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness index for 2015-2016.
In 2013, Malta had ranked 41st. Slovenia, Slovakia, Cyprus and Greece ranked lower than Malta out of the EU member states.
Malta’s overall score was 4.39, whereas index leader Switzerland scored 5.76 in the WEF indicators used to gauge competitiveness.
MORE WEF score of Malta's competitiveness
Malta’s best index ratings were in health and primary education, and technological readiness, placing it in the WEF index’s top 30 category.
The 4.39 score was made up of three main indexes.
Malta scored an overall 5.17 in the ‘basic requirements’ index, made up of the Institutions indicator (4.5), Infrastructure (4.66), Macroeconomic environment (5.18) and health and primary education (6.33).
In terms of the ‘efficiency enhancers’ index, Malta scored 4.39, made up of the scores from higher education and training (4.8), goods’ market efficiency (4.59), labour market efficiency (4.34), financial market development (4.34), technological readiness (5.62) and market size (2.6).
Malta scored a lowly 3.86 for the ‘innovation and sophistication factors’ index.
| The most problematic factors for doing business | |
|---|---|
| Inefficient government bureaucracy | 18.5 |
| Access to financing | 16.1 |
| Insufficient capacity to innovate | 13.9 |
| Inadequately educated workforce | 12.3 |
| Inadequate supply of infrastructure | 12.1 |
| Corruption | 6.1 |
| Restrictive labour regulations | 4.9 |
| Tax rates | 4.9 |
| Complexity of tax regulations | 3.7 |
| Poor work ethic in labour force | 3.4 |
| Policy instability | 1.8 |
| Crime and theft | 0.9 |
| Government instability/coups | 0.9 |
| Inflation | 0.6 |
| Poor public health | 0.1 |
| Foreign currency regulations | 0.0 |
The Global Competitiveness Report’s competitiveness ranking is based on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which was introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2004. Defining competitiveness as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country, GCI scores are calculated by drawing together country-level data covering 12 categories – the pillars of competitiveness – that collectively make up a comprehensive picture of a country’s competitiveness. The 12 pillars are: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.
Matthew Vella, a freelance journalist at MaltaToday, was formerly executive editor at Malt...
