Korea’s Competitiveness Drops 11 Spots

According to the annual Global Competitive Report conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF), a Switzerland-based think tank, Korea’s ranking dropped 11 spots to 29th in competitiveness.

The survey released on Wednesday found the result was due to signs of anticipated economic recession and a worsening macroeconomic environment index. Korea was rated 35th on the index, dropping from the 23rd spot last year, thanks to falling credibility of economic agents.

Last year, Korea was among the top-20 competitive countries in the world, ranked 18th for the first time.

Korea’s public institution competitiveness was rated 41st, down from 36th, and its technology competitiveness, in which it has shown strength so far, also fell to the ninth spot, down from last year’s sixth spot.

Compared to last year’s ranking (23rd), its corporate competitiveness stayed at almost the same spot, placing 24th among 93 countries surveyed. Its corporate performance and strategic delicacy was ranked 21st (19th last year), and in quality of business environment, placed 27th (25th last year).

The WEF provided separate indices such as politics, society, culture, and other fields that were excluded from the actual ranking. Korea showed good performance in environmental management systems (ranked ninth), environmental market (12th), and access to cellular phones (16th).

However, Korea took the low spot in efficiency of the legislative body (81st), female employment in the private sector (102nd), the ease of foreign employment (99th), the healthiness of banks (77th), and expenditures for agricultural policies (77th), whose fields showed similar results compared to last year.

Overall, Finland was ranked as having the most competitive economy in the world for the second consecutive year, with the United States taking the second spot. In Asia, Taiwan took the fourth spot followed by Japan at ninth and China at 46th.

Young-Sik Kim spear@donga.com