For the first time in decades, the Singapore economy has surpassed Hong Kong and the United States in a global competitiveness ranking, according to IMD, a Swiss business school.
The World Competitiveness Yearbook for this year released by IMD showed that the country’s resilience in weathering the economic crisis lifted it to the top spot.
According to IMD, Singapore has also suffered from high levels of volatility in economic performance just like Hong Kong, but the country is now taking a full expansion and economic growth in the Asian region. The 13 percent economic growth posted in Q1 this year is a clear evidence of this.
IMD’s ranking featured 58 industrialized and emerging countries, which are being evaluated based on 300 criteria.
Singapore fared well in the areas of business and government efficiencies, but ranked low in basic infrastructure and productivity – taking only the 17th spot in both categories.
Both Singapore and Hong Kong took low ranking in the area of prices, where the two countries ranked 47th and 55th, respectively.
Overall, the United States was ranked third after it survived a series of financial crisis with a huge size of its economy, strong business leadership and technology. Included in the top ten were Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Canada, Taiwan, Norway and Malaysia.
IMD stressed that the result of the world competitiveness ranking for this year were highly affected by the "unusual volatility" in financial assets, foreign exchange, economic growth, employment figures and trade and investment flows.