According to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018, Estonia is the 29th most competitive economy in the world.
The Global Competitiveness Report, that measures national competitiveness – defined as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity – gives Estonia a competitiveness score of 4.85, meaning the country is doing fairly well among the 137 countries listed in the index.
The index is compiled based on the rankings of 12 pillars – institutions, infrastructure, the macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, the goods market efficiency, the labour market efficiency, the financial market development, technological readiness, the market size, business sophistication and innovation.
Estonia is doing well in the macroeconomic environment and the health and primary education categories, scoring 15th and 19th among the 137 indexed countries, respectively. On the other hand, the country is doing rather poorly in the market size category, having scored only 98th. Business sophistication also needs some work (Estonia scored 45th).
Estonia’s tax rates and inadequately educated work force an issue
The most problematic factors for doing business in Estonia, the Global Competitiveness Index points out, are the tax rates, inadequately educated work force, and government instability.
In the last index, Estonia came 30th.
The most competitive country in the world is Switzerland, followed by the United States and Singapore. Finland ranked 10th, Russia 38th, Lithuania 41st and Latvia 54th.
The Global Competitiveness Report is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum and it assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens. This, in turn, depends on how productively a country uses available resources.
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Cover: A modern office in Estonia (photo by Maris Tomba.)
