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Nordic countries and East Asian tigers top the rankings in the World Economic Forum’s 2005 competitiveness rankings. Australia, India, Ireland and Poland all gain positions – US remains in second place after Finland

Finland remains the most competitive economy in the world and tops the rankings for the third consecutive year in The Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006, released today by the World Economic Forum. The United States is in second position, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Taiwan and Singapore, respectively.

United States, as last year, is ranked second: the country demonstrates overall technological supremacy, with a very powerful culture of innovation. However, technological prowess is partly offset by a weaker performance in other areas measured by the index. The US has a relatively low rank of 20 for the contracts and law indicator, with particular concerns on the part of the business community about the government’s ability to maintain arm’s-length relationships with the private sector, and in the formulation of policies more generally. But the country’s greatest weakness concerns the health of its macroeconomic environment, where it ranks a low 47th overall. This echoes the increasingly vocal international concerns about the macroeconomic imbalances in the US economy, especially as regards the public finances.

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