{"id":31870,"date":"2013-09-11T08:15:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T13:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ict-pulse.com\/?p=31870"},"modified":"2013-09-11T08:26:24","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T13:26:24","slug":"snapshot-competitive-caribbean-economies-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/2013\/09\/snapshot-competitive-caribbean-economies-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapshot: how competitive are Caribbean economies in 2013?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An examination of the recently released Global Competitiveness Report, and how the Caribbean countries included in the assessment perform against over 140 economies.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Top 10 countries 2013-14 (Source: WEF)<\/p><\/div>\n

On Tuesday, 3 September, the World Economic Forum<\/a> (WEF) published the 2013\u20132014 edition of the Global Competitiveness Report<\/a><\/i>, which evaluated the competitive landscape in 148 countries.\u00a0 The assessment, which is comprehensive in its scope, was not designed to focus on specific sectors, hence the results tend to indicate national competitiveness. However, based on the breadth and depth of the indicators examined, it is possible to use the outputs to also consider country competitiveness in relation to ICT and technology.<\/p>\n

Within the 148 countries surveyed, seven Caribbean\/CARCIOM countries were included: Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. \u00a0This post highlights key findings of the latest Global Competitiveness Report, with specific focus on the Caribbean\/CARICOM countries assessed.<\/p>\n

Competitiveness indicators<\/h3>\n

The WEF defines competitiveness as \u201cthe set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country<\/i>\u201d. Hence its assessment aims to capture and evaluate both the dynamic and static elements that point to, or drive productivity and competitiveness.\u00a0 The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) measures 98 indicators categorized in three sub-indices under 12 pillars as shown in Table 1.<\/p>\n

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Table 1: Indices and pillars assessed towards determining the GCI (Source: WEF)<\/p><\/div>\n

The final GCI score assigned to each country is calculated \u201cbased on successive aggregations of scores from the indicator level (i.e., the most disaggregated level) all the way up to the overall GCI score.\u201d<\/i> (Source: WEF). Typically, the arithmetic mean (which is layman\u2019s terms is referred to as the average) is used to aggregate the scores, unless otherwise specified. The maximum score that can be obtained is 7.00.<\/p>\n

How did Caribbean countries perform?<\/h3>\n

Out of the seven Caribbean countries included in the 2013\u20142014 assessment, Barbados was the top ranked Caribbean\/CARICOM country, at 47th of 148 countries, with a score of 4.42, and having dropped three spots from last year. It was also the third most competitive country in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, behind Chile and Panama. In the country grouping under scrutiny, Barbados was by Trinidad and Tobago (92, with a score of 3.91), Jamaica (94, with a score of 3.86), Guyana (102, with a score of 3.77), Dominican Republic (105, with a score of 3.76), Suriname (106, with a score of 3.75), and finally Haiti (143, with a score of 3.11). Figure 1 provides a breakdown of the scores under the main sub-indices, which would have contributed to final score.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1: Scores for main sub-indices used to calculate the GCI for select Caribbean countries (Source: WEF)<\/p><\/div>\n

Upon closer examination of the scores for the individual indicators, some clear strengths and weaknesses per country can be isolated, as shown in Table 2. Generally, there are few common strengths or weaknesses across the Caribbean\/CARICOM region. Only two stand out:<\/p>\n