Wednesday the World Economic Forum published its Report on the Global Competitiveness Index (2017-2018). With a general average of 3.22 Haiti ranks 128th among the 137 economies analyzed accounting for 98% of the world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and in the last position with Venezuela in the Latin America and Caribbean Region...

According to the report, poor performance in Haiti is caused by poor performance in infrastructure (136th, average: 1.8), financial market development (134th, 2.5), technological maturity (134th, 2), the efficiency of the goods market (135th, 3.8), the sophistication of firms (137th, 2.6) and the weakness of innovation (137th, 2.1).

With a GDP of $ 8.3 billion and a per capita GDP of $ 761.2, Haiti's economy fails to compare with its neighbor the Dominican Republic, which for an equivalent population has a GDP of $ 72.2 billion and a GDP per capita of 7,159.5 dollars (104th in the world ranking with an average of 3.9). Note that in the Latin American and Caribbean economies, Chile remains the leading economy in terms of competitiveness in the Region and 33rd in the world followed by Costa Rica (47th in the world)

Over the past five years, Haiti has not done better than maintaining at the bottom of the ranking (142th out of 144 in 2012-2013, 143th out of 148 in 2013-2014, 137th out of 144 in 2014-2015 and 134th out of 140 in 2015-2016). Haiti is ahead: Burundi (129th), Sierra Leone (130th), Lesotho (131st), Malawi (132nd), Mauritania (133rd), Liberia (134th), Chad (136th) and Yemen (137th).

In the overall ranking, on the podium the 3 most competitive countries remain the same: Switzerland ranks first among the most competitive economies in the world followed by the United States (2nd) and Singapore (3rd).

Recall that the ranking of the Global Competitiveness Report is based on the World Competitiveness Index (ICM) launched in 2005 by the World Economic Forum. The ICM ranking, is the result of a combination of national data collected in 12 different areas: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health, primary education, higher education and vocational training, market efficiency of goods, the efficiency of the labor market, financial market development, technological maturity, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

SL/ HaitiLibre