The latest ranking puts India at the 40th spot, which marks a drop of 3 points from the position in the 2022 rankings. In the year before that, the ranking had slipped to even 43. And to that extent this year’s show is an improvement, but nondescript compared to the early years of the Modi government. The latest changes have been allowed to go unnoticed as there is little to write home about.

In contrast, the government had launched a publicity blitzkrieg over the climb after Modi took office and the prime minister himself no opportunity to highlight the importance of the achievement. The government had used it as a sticker of recognition for the efficacy of the government’s fiscal management policies as well as approaches to help businesses conduct operations smoothly. The government had announced a plan to take India within the top 25 countries of the world in terms of competitiveness by 2030, but the target does not appear to be within reach, going by the performance in the past few years.

The report notes that the most successful economies tend to be smaller, have a good institutional framework including strong education systems, and good access to markets and trading partners. The latest IMD rankings have Denmark on the top spot, followed by Ireland, which has progressed from the seventh position to the second. Switzerland took the overall third position, helped by its improvement in economic performance, in which the country advanced from 30th to the 18th position, although in terms of government efficiency and infrastructure, it slipped from fourth to the seventh slot. Other countries noted for excellent performances include resilient economies such as Ireland, Iceland, and Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Singapore. The United States improved one position from tenth to the ninth.

IMD points out that the global business confidence levels are gloomy and cites the results of WCR’s Executive Opinion Survey for such conclusion. The opinion survey forms part of the data set comprising the results of the WCR: risks of a global economic recession or slowdown, inflationary pressures, and geopolitical conflicts outweigh concerns about environmental issues and climate change. Inflation has impacted regional competitiveness scores with countries that are experiencing the highest inflation rates globally, such as Eastern European economies, losing ground over those with low levels of inflation.

Regions and countries that have stable indigenous energy production, robust supply chains, and favourable trade balances have managed to maintain or improve their levels of prosperity despite the turbulence in the world economy. These include China, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and Taiwan. On the other hand, economies heavily reliant on raw material and energy imports have experienced a decline in their competitiveness. A notable mention is Indonesia, which has recorded the largest climb of 10 slots to the 34th and the progress is attributed to robust achievements in economic performance and business efficiency.

East Asian and West European nations fell in their competitiveness and North American economies maintained stability in ranking, remaining at their respective previous year’s level, while Eastern Europe experienced the largest decline.

The World Competitiveness Centre of IMD collaborated with 57 local Partner Institutes to assess 64 economies via a mixture of hard data, which included 164 competitiveness criteria selected as a result of comprehensive research using economic literature, international, national, and regional sources, and feedback from the business community, government agencies, and academics as well as 92 survey questions answered by 6,400 senior executives to compile the rankings. Due to limited reliability of the data collected, Russia and Ukraine were not assessed for the 2023 rankings. (IPA Service)