Kuwait & Qatar lead GCC competitiveness index

Kuwait is showing its financial muscle with ideas like the construction of the extraordinary Cobra Tower.

Kuwait and Qatar have beaten Saudi Arabia and the UAE in a new list of the best countries in the world to do business.

The Global Competitiveness Index, which is co-produced by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and TIME magazine, lists Kuwait as the 30^th most competitive country. Qatar is 31^st, Saudi Arabia is 35^th and the UAE comes fourth among GCC countries with a global ranking of 37^th.

Oman at 42^nd and Bahrain at 43^rd complete the list of Gulf countries.

The Global Competitiveness Report, says TIME magazine, tallies 113 factors that contribute to an economy's competitiveness-a buzzword that roughly boils down to how well a country is positioned to squeeze efficiency out of its businesses and attract companies and investment from abroad.

Components of the resulting Global Competitiveness Index range from the quality of a nation's roads to the independence of its judiciary to the incidence of tuberculosis to how easy it is to hire an engineer. Parts of the index are culled from official data; many others are drawn from a survey of 11,000 international business executives.

In the overall ranking, the U.S. finishes first out of 131 countries, thanks in part to top scores in venture-capital availability, domestic-market size and the low cost of firing workers.

Next are Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Singapore, Japan, the U.K. and the Netherlands.

The UAE's relatively poor showing among its GCC peers was affected by a number of factors. The research showed that restrictive labour regulations, an inadequately educated workforce and high inflation have reduced its competitiveness. This, despite the fact that it scores among the world's leading nations for crime and theft, government instability, and tax regulations.

Kuwait was marked down for inefficient government bureaucracy, policy instability and corruption. But scored well for low inflation, low tax rates, and easy access to finance.

The index is designed to show governments where they are winning and losing, according to its authors.

"We're taking the complexity of the world economy and simplifying it," says Jennifer Blanke, a senior economist at the WEF, "so that business and government can say, ‘These are the obstacles going forward. What can we do to overcome them?'"

The Global Competitiveness Index can be found at www.time.com/time/global_business.

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