Israel is ranked 20th among 61 countries in the 2006 world competitiveness rankings, produced by the World Competitiveness Center at Swiss business school IMD, Israel has risen 22 places in the rankings from 42nd in 2005. In the general rankings, which include government, bureaucracy, infrastructure and business sector activity, Israel is ranked 25th.
The US tops the list, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, Iceland, and Denmark. Last placed countries are Romania, Poland, Croatia, Indonesia, and Venezuela.
Israel received an especially low ranking in the categories of participation in the labor force and corporate taxation. Israel was ranked in 56th place in the participation in the labor force category, the same as in 2005, and in 55th place in the corporate taxation category, also the same as last year.
On the positive side, Israel was ranked first in 2006 in R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, the same as in 2005. (High-tech companies say, however, that a more important variable is for R&D success and leadership is absolute spending, because they compete against total spending by foreign companies, not as a percentage of GDP.) Israel is also ranked first in public spending on education as a percentage of GDP, up from third place in 2005.
Israel is also ranked third in IT, up from fifth place in 2005; fourth in skilled manpower, up from tenth place; sixth in openness to the global market, up from 13th place; and seventh in Noble Prize laureates relative to total population, up from ninth place.
The World Competitiveness Yearbook is published by Switzerland’s IMD - International Institute for Management Development, one of the world’s leading business schools. The yearbook ranks 61 countries according to 312 factors collated from economic institutes worldwide. Its source for Israel is the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, whose data is derived from the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on May 31, 2006
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2006