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By Darwin G. Amojelar
Reporter
THE Philippines ranked higher in
terms of global competitiveness this year, but still lagged behind
its Asian peers, according to the latest World Competitiveness
Yearbook
In its 2008 Yearbook, the
Switzerland-based Institute of Management Development (IMD) said the
Philippines ranked 40th, or up five notches from last year, with a
score of 50.478 among 55 countries.
IMD ranked 55 economies from the
most competitive to the least competitive, with scores from 0 to 100
based on 331 criteria measuring different facets of competitiveness.
The criteria include economic
performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and
infrastructure.
Despite the improvement in its
ranking, the Philippines lagged behind Malaysia, which placed 19th;
Thailand, 27th; and Korea, 31st. Indonesia however fell behind at
51st.
The US remained on top, followed
by Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Denmark, Australia,
Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Suzanne Rosselet-McCauley, IMD
deputy director, said this could be the last time that the US would
be in the first place as Singapore might boot it out.
With the US scoring 100,
Singapore is in second place with 99.3.
“This year may be the turning
point where the US falls from its leadership of top competitors in
the world economy,” IMD said.
The organization said this could
be a re-make of the Japanese tragedy. Japan had topped the list in
the 1990s, but has since fallen to the 22nd spot this year.
“The past crisis in Japan bears
some resemblance with the present turmoil in the US. It followed a
period of economic boom, real estate price follies and exuberant
assets expansion,” IMD said.
“In addition, the
liberalization of financial instruments took place without the
appropriate regulatory environment; corporate governance was
inadequate with little accountability and transparency; and the
government was quickly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the
crisis,” it added.
The crisis in Japan spread from
the stock market to real estate, then developed into a credit crunch
before turning into a major crisis of the financial system, IMD
said.
However, the differences between
the world’s two largest economies are quite large, it added.
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