U.S. Falls Behind in Competition?

The “Global Competition Report” of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2010-2011 has been published just before the Ramadan Festival. In the first week of October, the “Gender Gap Report,” which I am interested in more, will be released.

The WEF evaluated 139 countries’ economies according to their capacity of innovation, technology, institution, infrastructure, health, education and 12 other criteria like these, and concluded this competitive report under the headline, “U.S. falls in Competitiveness rankings”.

It must be the most striking result of this report. While the U.S. was in second place last year, now it is in fourth place behind Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore.

According to the report, by having the most transparent and productive institutions, Sweden took the second place by passing the U.S. and Singapore. Sweden is number one, as it was last year.

So, why is the U.S. losing ground on its famous competitiveness?

Could It Be Obama’s Loss of Credibility?

According to the WEF’s report, the U.S. is still in the lead by means of investing in innovation, research and development. However, the number of other factors that decreased its competitiveness is not small. Weakening of public and private establishments, people’s lack of confidence in politicians and the business world’s suspicion of government expenditures are only a few of them.

At this point, the question comes to mind: Could it be a loss of trust in Obama that has affected the U.S.’ competitiveness?

According to the WEF’s report, another important factor that damaged the U.S.’ competitiveness is “macroeconomic instability.” On the other hand, Germany moved to fifth place from seventh because of its stable in macroeconomics.

Turkey Is in 61st Place

Among the European countries, Poland is the one that performed best compared to last year. It jumped ahead seven places to 39th place. However, Spain lost nine places, falling to 42nd in the WEF Report.

Now, let’s talk about Turkey. It kept last year’s position in 61st place out of 139.

In its evaluation of Turkey, the WEF counts Turkey’s intense local competitive situation, dynamic business world and developing infrastructure among the positive features. As for negatives, the report underlines items such as the incompetence of the education and health care systems, and an insufficient market.

It says, “Turkey should improve the conditions of education and health care in order to improve human resources,” and adds that “[i]t should especially focus on nonproductiveness of the public institutions and their transparency issues.”

Iran in the Report for the First Time

Another interesting thing for us is that, as the 16th largest economy in the world, Turkey holds 61st place in the WEF’s “Global Competitiveness Report,” which is parallel to the positions of other BRIC countries, except China.

Of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) that are in the top 10 economies in the world, the only country that performed better than last year was China, moving to 27th place from 30th. India is in 51st, Brazil in 58th and neighboring Russia in 63rd place.

Iran, which was included in the WEF Competitiveness Report for the first time this year, is in 69th place. Since this year’s WEF Competitiveness Report coincided with the Ramadan Festival and referendum, this fact went unnoticed; however, last year, YASED (International Investors Foundation) made a comprehensive assessment of this report.