Davos report puts focus on Bahrain’s competitive edge

Bahrain is among the top 50 ‘most competitive’ economies in the world, according to a World Economic Forum study published yesterday. The Global Competitiveness Report 2018 published by the World Economic Forum ranked Bahrain 50th among 140 countries included in the study.

The study analysed the financial and economic factors as well as socioeconomic outcomes in the countries. Global Competitiveness Index 4.0, which was at the crux of the study, measured the 140 economies against 98 indicators organised into 12 ‘pillars’. Bahrain ranked high in indices including Skills (28th), Product Market (28th), Infrastructure (30th), Financial System (33rd) and ICT Adoption (38th), but fared poorly in indices such as Macroeconomic Stability (ranked 119th), and Market Size (90th). Bahrain obtained an overall score of 60.3 in the index.

The UAE was ranked the best in the region and 27th in the world. Regionally, the UAE was followed by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Only five out of 15 MENA countries appear in the top half of the rankings of the business dynamism sub-pillar: Israel (5th), the United Arab Emirates (33rd), Qatar (40th), Oman (52nd) and Bahrain (54th). In the MENA region only four countries appear in the top half of the rankings of the labour market pillar: Israel (15th), the United Arab Emirates (42nd), Bahrain (46th) and Qatar (54th).

In its analysis of the Middle East region, the report stated, “Today, the region remains quite diverse in terms of competitiveness performance across all components of the index. Israel and the United Arab Emirates are pulling ahead, and on many dimensions outperform most of the OECD countries. “The region can generally count on good transport infrastructure, but improvements are necessary, especially in terms of intra-region connectivity.