Bangladesh moves up in GCI

WEF

The country’s position has risen to 109th among 144 countries this year from 110th last year among 148 nations.

However, Bangladesh’s score has remained the same at 3.7 this year.

The information is found in the ‘Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15’ published by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) will publish it in Bangladesh on Thursday.

Switzerland topped the GCI with 5.7 points.

It is followed by Singapore, the United States, Finland, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The report has shown the GDP of Bangladesh, having a population of 156.3 million, at $141.3 billion, 0.37 percent of the world GDP.

Competitiveness of 12 sectors in one year is taken into account in preparing the index.

The sectors are institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

Bangladesh’s position is best in institutions sector competitiveness.

The report identified insufficiency in infrastructure, corruption, bureaucratic tangles, instability of the governments, limited access to finance, imbalanced policies, crimes and theft, inflation and high duty as main deterrents to business in Bangladesh.

SAARC countries’ overall positions are better this year than the previous year.

Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar moved 15, 6 and 5 notches up to 102nd, 103rd and 134th respectively.

The position of Sri Lanka stands at 73rd and Pakistan 129th.

Source: bdnews14