Malta climbs four places in competitiveness index

Malta climbed four places to rank 52nd for its competitiveness, according to a study by the World Economic Forum which gauged 134 countries around the world.

Despite the improved ranking, other EU countries dominated the top 20 places, making Malta's performance look weak.

The United States placed first, followed by Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Singapore, while the United Kingdom dropped out of the top 10 due to the weakening of its financial markets, falling from ninth to 12th place.

Russia placed just before Malta and Poland is next in line. Compared to the 15 eurozone countries, Malta was in penultimate position.

Malta ranked high in the financial institutions index (18th), mainly as a result of the well-regulated and conservative banking policies.

"This improved ranking is highly positive for Malta and should prove beneficial especially in the current crisis," the Foundation for National Competitiveness said at the launch of the report.

"A nation's level of competitiveness reflects the extent to which it is able to provide rising prosperity to its citizens. Thus, a more competitive economy will be one which will likely grow faster in a medium- to long-term perspective."

The foundation called for better and more qualified human resources, more focus on breakthrough technology and the development of a stronger entrepreneurial culture over a trading or speculative one. More emphasis needed to be placed on providing business with a platform for internationalisation.

The factors leading to a better overall competiveness ranking this year were Malta's ranking in 27th place for technological readiness and 18th for financial market sophistication.

The figures were more disappointing when it came to labour market efficiency (100th), market size (97th), macro-economic stability (68th), innovation (60th), business sophistication (59th) and goods market efficiency (43th).

The report contains a detailed profile for each country providing a comprehensive listing of the main strengths and weaknesses of each economy, making it possible to identify key priorities for reform.

The results were calculated from both publicly-available data and a comprehensive survey with over 12,000 business leaders, designed to capture the broad range of factors affecting an economy's business climate.