Mongolia remains second to last on IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2018

Mongolia ranked 62nd with an overall score of 52.6 out of 100 in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2018, published by IMD annually since 1989...

Mongolia ranked 62nd with an overall score of 52.6 out of 100 in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2018, published by IMD annually since 1989. Despite the fact that Mongolia was ranked second to last only to Venezuela out of 63 countries included in the study, it outpaced Venezuela by a large margin.

Venezuela only scored 27.5 points compared to Mongolia’s 52.6, which was a lot closer to a group of countries including Brazil, Croatia, Greece, Colombia, and Argentina that scored in the mid to high 50’s. Mongolia’s rank did not change compared to 2017, but its score improved from 48.1 to 52.6.

In 2016, Mongolia ranked 60th with an overall score of 45.7 out of 61 countries. The competitiveness of countries is evaluated by 346 criteria based on four factors: economic performance, business efficiency, government efficiency and infrastructure.

The top five most competitive economies in the world remain the same as in the previous year, but their order changes. The United States returns to the first spot, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The United States improves three positions from last year while Hong Kong drops one spot and Singapore remains third.

“The bottom five economies show a slight change in their performance especially those countries that have experienced economic and political distress in the last few years. While Mongolia (62nd) and Venezuela (63rd) remain in the last positions, Ukraine (59th) and Brazil (60th) improve. Brazil’s improvement is the first since 2010 due to a positive shift in real GDP and employment. Ukraine increases because of its business efficiency. Their rise pushes Croatia down two places to 61st,” the IMD said.

Meanwhile, China was able to move up five places to reach 13th and Russia improved one place to reach 45th.

The IMD World Competitiveness Center, a research group at IMD business school in Switzerland, has published the rankings every year since 1989. It compiles them using 258 indicators. “Hard” data such as national employment and trade statistics are weighted twice as much as the “soft” data from an executive opinion survey that measures the business perception of issues such as corruption, environmental concerns and quality of life.