Palace Welcomes PHL Ranking in Latest World Competitiveness Yearbook

Malacañang on Tuesday welcomed the latest World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) rankings of the International Institute of Management Development, which showed the Philippines at 42nd place among 61 economies and 12th among 14 Asia-Pacific countries.

The report was based on 342 criteria clustered under four broad categories — economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure, Communication Secretary Herminio Coloma, Jr. said in a statement.

“We note the WCY report stated the Philippines registered marked improvements in business efficiency and infrastructure and remained stable in government efficiency, while the country’s workforce emerged as the economy’s most attractive feature. The country’s ranking remains stable and resilient in the face of a general decline among most Asian economies, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and mainland China,” Coloma said.

The Palace official added that during the past six years, the Philippines has made “significant gains in its WCY, surging by more than 43 places from 85th place in 2010, buoyed largely by the social and economic reforms anchored on good governance that President Aquino has instituted during his term”.

“And as the Aquino administration prepares to step down from power, we prepare to step down, we shall pass on a stronger, more competitive and broad-based and inclusive economy to the next administration,” Coloma said.

Hong Kong topped the rankings (from second in 2015), followed by Switzerland (from fourth in 2015), and the United States, which dropped from first place.

The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook is the leading annual report on the competitiveness of nations and has been published by IMD since 1989. It benchmarks the performance of 61 countries based on more than 340 criteria measuring different facets of competitiveness. (PNA) RMA/PND/EDS