The Portuguese economy has climbed three spots to 39th in the IMD World Competitiveness Rankings, led by Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland, but fiscal policy and the labor market appear to be the country’s worst rankings.
“Moving up three positions compared to 2022, Portugal ranks 39th in a study published by the IMD World Competitiveness Center (WCC). […]. After recovering from a six-place drop last year, the country is still three places behind its 2021 result (36th),” IMD said in a statement.
In this assessment, which covers 64 countries worldwide, Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland currently lead the way, with Singapore and the Netherlands rounding out the top five.
Portugal recorded an improvement in two of the four key indicators.
It has jumped from 46th to 42nd in economics and is now 41st in business performance, up from 42nd last year.
However, in terms of government efficiency, it remains in 43rd place.
In terms of the infrastructure factor, the country dropped two positions (32nd place).
According to the same note, Portugal stood out well on the sub-factors of education (23rd), membership (24th), international trade (26th), and health and environment (27th).
In the opposite direction, the worst performers were in fiscal policy (54th), labor market (51st), business management practices (51st), and public finance (49th).
“Portugal’s improvement in the overall rankings is largely due to its significant progress in terms of economic performance, namely in the sub-factors of the world economy and international trade. Portugal also performs well in some aspects of business performance, such as overall productivity, long-term labor force growth, the stock exchange index and the effectiveness of the response of the private sector to market opportunities and threats,” said WCC Senior Economist, cited in the same communiqué. Jose Horsman.
In regards to Portugal’s concerns, the study highlights guaranteeing gross domestic product (GDP) growth above the European Union average.
Added to this is the need to develop a strategy to advance managerial skills, digital transformation and energy transition, as well as cross-party agreement on strategies to address demographic challenges such as aging and low birth rates.
On the other hand, Portugal should “encourage reforms in the areas of justice, health, education and social security, which can improve the quality of public services and reduce economic debt.”
The analysis also found that global levels of company confidence are “not very encouraging,” given the results of a survey of executives on global competitiveness, one of the data included in the report.
The risks of recession, economic downturn, inflationary pressures and geopolitical conflicts outweigh concerns about environmental issues and climate change.
Countries that excel at adapting to unpredictability “tend to build resilient economies” and governments adapt policies “in time” to reflect economic conditions.
Countries with stable domestic energy production, reliable supply chains and favorable trade balances have also managed to overcome the “impact of the shocks in the global economy.”
Inflation, in turn, also affected competitiveness performance, with countries with higher inflation losing ground to countries with low inflation.
For example, Latvia, which dropped from 35th to 51st place, mainly due to the deterioration of management and business performance indicators.
The last five places in this ranking are Brazil (60th), South Africa (61st), Mongolia (62nd), Argentina (63rd) and Venezuela (64th).
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.