In the 2014-2015 Global Competitiveness Rating Russia Moved 11 Positions Upwards

The research was carried out on the basis of processing of the public data and the outputs of the survey of 14,000 managers of companies in 144 countries. The rating is based on 12 categories: the quality of institutes, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, healthcare and primary education, higher education and vocational training, the efficiency of the market of goods and services, the labor market efficiency, the financial market development, technology level, the scope of the domestic market, the competitive edge of the companies and the innovation potential.

For six years running, Switzerland is the world's leader in the Global Competitiveness Rating; out of the 12 main categories it was in the top ten of the following 8 categories: the labor market efficiency (the 1st place), the innovation potential (the 2nd place), the competitive edge of the companies (the 2nd place), the higher education and vocational training (the 4th place), infrastructure (the 5th place), the efficiency of the market of goods and services (the 8th place), the efficiency of institutes (the 9th place) and the technology level (the 10th place).
For two years running, Singapore is rated the second due to its high indices by all the categories of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI). Singapore is the only economy which was in the top 3 of seven indices out of 12 categories: Singapore leads the rating of efficiency of the market of goods and services, is rated the second in such categories as infrastructure, higher education and vocational training, labor market efficiency and the financial market development. As regards the quality of institutes, healthcare and primary education, it is rated the third.

The US moved to the third place from the fifth one "as recovering from the crisis it managed to create structural instruments which make its economy highly efficient". It was stated in the report that US companies are "highly competitive and innovative and have support of an excellent university system". Other explicit advantages of the US economy include flexible labor market and a large scope of the domestic market. As regards weaknesses, it is the low level of confidence in political figures (the 48th place) and awareness of ineffective spending of public funds (the 73rd place). Also, there are concerns over the macroeconomic stability (the 113th place).

In addition to the above countries, the top ten includes Finland, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden.
The Russian Federation moved to the 53rd place from the 64th place in 2013. The Russian Federation is above the 40th place only in the following four categories: the scope of the domestic market (the 7th place), the macroeconomic stability (the 31st place), higher education and vocational training (the 39th place) and infrastructure (the 39th place). As regards other categories, the situation is as follows: the labor market efficiency (the 45th place), healthcare and primary education (the 56th place), technology level (the 59th place), the innovation potential (the 65th place), the competitive edge of companies (the 86th place), the quality of institutes (the 97th place) and the efficiency of the market of goods and services (the 99th place). As regards such an important index as the extent of development of the financial market, the Russian Federation was rated the 110th.

It is to be noted that the Report did not take into account the developments of the past few months, that is, a conflict in Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia and Russia's retaliatory sanctions against the West. The above developments may affect Russia's rating in future.

Nadezhda Volovik, Head of the Department of Foreign Economic Affairs