SA drops in competitiveness index, but it's just technical

<a href=www.busrep.co.za>Business Report May 15, 2003 By Quentin Wray

SA drops in competitiveness index, but it's just technical Johannesburg - South Africa dropped from 16th to 18th place in the IMD world competitiveness ranking in 2003 of economies with populations of more than 20 million people.

However, the change was due to the introduction of two regional economies - Sao Paulo in Brazil and Zhejiang in China, which were ranked 13th and 14th.

The US, Australia, Canada, Malaysia and Germany led the big economy rankings. South Africa was the only African country ranked. Finland, Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong and Switzerland led the rankings of economies with less than 20 million people . Venezuela and Jordan were the least competitive countries in the two categories.

The Swiss-based IMD aggregates more than 320 competitiveness criteria in 51 countries and eight regional economies.

The report warned that the US current account deficit, budget deficit and proposed tax cuts could increase foreign debt and lead to a further weakening of the dollar in 2003. This would make it harder for developing nations to raise capital. - Quentin Wray