The Philippines dropped four places in the 2023 World Competitiveness Yearbook to rank 52nd among 64 economies this year.
WCY said the country fell from 48th spot in 2022 amid global inflation, public health crises, geopolitical concerns and other uncertainties.
The yearbook ranks economies using 255 ranked criteria spread across the four competitiveness factors of economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.
The Philippines’ ranking fell in three of the four main dimensions of competitiveness. Its business efficiency factor slid to 40th in 2023 from 39th in 2022, while its infrastructure factor, which continues to be a perennial challenge for the Philippines, also dropped to 58th from 57th.
The country’s government efficiency factor suffered the biggest decline of four places to 52nd in 2023 from 48th in 2022. All the sub-factors under government efficiency suffered declines—public finance, from 51st in 2022 to 55th in 2023; tax policy, from 13th to 14th; institutional framework, from 53rd to 56th; business legislation, from 52nd to 57th; and societal framework, from 50th to 53rd.
Its economic performance factor improved by 13 places to 40th from 53rd in 2022. The sub-factors under this domain saw improvements in domestic economy, from 48th to 30th; employment, from 19th to 9th; and, prices, from 58th to 39th.
WCY said among the challenges the Philippines faces this year are sustaining economic recovery and growth momentum amid the global downside risks, strengthening social protection and health care systems for inclusive development, addressing learning gaps to improve local education system, investing in sustainable infrastructure to reduce climate change vulnerability and reinforcing efficient public management strategies to support fiscal responsibility.
The findings on 162 of the indicators were based on hard data gathered from national sources, while the rest are perception-based indicators derived from an executive opinion survey of mid and upper-level managers in each country covered.
This year’s results reflected the impact of different crises such as global inflation, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, said World Competitiveness Centre director Arturo Bris.
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine were not assessed due to limited data reliability. Kuwait joined the list of surveyed economies for the first time and was ranked 38th of 64 economies.
The top three most competitive economies in the 2023 WCY rankings are Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland. In the Asia-Pacific region, the three most competitive economies are Singapore at 4th globally, Taiwan at 6th and Hong Kong at 7th.
The WCY has been published by the International Institute of Management Development since 1989. The Asian Institute of Management Rizalino S.
Navarro Policy Center for Competitiveness has been the Philippine partner institute of the IMD in producing the Yearbook since 1997.
The AIM RSN PCC assists IMD by supplying data from national sources and helping distribute the EOS.
