Azerbaijan improves position in WEF's competitiveness ranking

Azerbaijan has improved its position in the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s competitiveness ranking, having risen from 37th to 35th position, according to the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018.

In total, the WEF’s ranking includes 137 countries. Switzerland became the leader of the ranking, just like in last year. Switzerland is followed by the US (third place in the previous ranking) and Singapore (second place in the previous ranking).

The top five countries also included the Netherlands and Germany, which retained their positions compared to the previous ranking - the fourth and fifth places, respectively.

According to the ranking, Azerbaijan took the best position among the countries of the post-Soviet space. Russia ranked 38th, Kazakhstan - 57th, Georgia - 67th, Armenia - 73rd, Tajikistan - 79th, Ukraine - 81st, etc.

The neighbors of Azerbaijan - Turkey and Iran – ranked 53rd and 69th respectively.

Azerbaijan took the best position in the following categories: “labor market efficiency” - 17th place, “goods market efficiency” - 31st place, “innovation” - 33rd place, “institutions” - 33rd place.

At the same time, the WEF noted a number of problems in Azerbaijan, the most important of which are the access to financing, foreign currency regulations, tax regulations and inflation.

It should be noted that compared to the WEF’s previous report for 2016-2017, corruption index dropped from the first to the seventh place in the list of the main problematic factors for doing business in Azerbaijan, and inflation dropped from the second to the fourth place. (Trend.az)