Singapore Is Third-Most Competitive Economy in 2022

After dropping from 1st to 5th last year, Singapore has rebounded to the third spot in the Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Ranking this 2022. This makes Singapore the top Asia-Pacific economy for the year. 

This year, the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking evaluated over 63 countries and measured economic welfare by use of survey responses from executives and statistics. 

Ukraine and Russia were excluded from this year while Bahrain entered the list for the time. 

Singapore was previously ranked number one in the years 2019 and 2020. The next Asian countries after Singapore are Hong Kong, which ranked fifth, Taiwan which ranked seventh, and China which took 17th place. 

IMD has mentioned that significant improvements in Singapore’s domestic economy contributed to its recovery. Singapore’s rankings also improved in the areas of public finance, employment, productivity, and efficiency. 

According to IMD “indicators based on executives’ sentiment also highlight concerns with respect to hybrid work models and the overall attractiveness of the city-state to foreign highly skilled professionals,”

Compared to its high rankings in other aspects, Singapore came in 16th for scientific infrastructure, 25th for health and environment, and 14th for management practices. 

On this topic, IMD stated that “if these concerns materialize, they might hinder Singapore’s capacity to attract overseas talent in the following years, potentially curbing its long-term competitiveness.”

IMD shares that the different COVID-19 strategies and policies have either aided or prevented economic recovery from the pandemic and this is reflected in this year’s global rankings. 

Chief economist at IMD, Mr. Christos Cabolis has said that several international issues such as the Russia – Ukraine war, COVID-19 variants, the number of people infected with the virus, and varying domestic policies relating to the pandemic have affected the competitiveness rankings of countries.

Source: Inquirer