Estonia climbs two notches to place 31 on IMD competitiveness scoreboard

Estonia was ranked in place 31, two places higher than last year, in the 2012 World Competitiveness Rankings published by the Lausanne-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD) on Thursday.

Compared with the rankings for 2011, Estonia had passed the Czech Republic and Norway. The most competitive of the 59 ranked economies in 2012 are Hong Kong, the United States and Switzerland. In places 4 to 10 come Singapore, Sweden, Canada, Taiwan, Norway, Germany and Qatar.

Competing in the same league with Estonia are Chile in place 28, France in 29, Thailand in 30, Kazakhstan in 32, the Czech Republic in 33 and Poland in 34. Lithuania made a powerful rise from 45th last year to place 36 in the rankings for 2012. Finland was down two notches in place 17 and Russia improved its ranking by one notch to 48th. Latvia was not covered.

In addition to the rankings the study measures competitiveness performance as a percentage relative to the winning nation. Estonia scored 66.9 percent against Hong Kong, a 1.3 points lower result than last year.

According to business leaders in Estonia the most attractive and effective aspects of the Estonian economic environment are a competitive tax system, favorable prices, stable economic policy and a business friendly environment.

Estonia's best showing in the IMD scoreboard so far is place 19 in 2006. Estonia has been taking part in the project since 2002 and the Estonian partner to IMD is the Institute of Economic Research.

Baltic News Service