The National Competitiveness Council recently announced the Philippines has moved up in competitiveness to rank No. 47 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 2015-2016.
With the new ranking, the country joins the top third of the global competitiveness survey, which studied a total of 140 economies.
The WEF survey measures productivity and competitiveness by gathering statistical and survey data on 113 indicators grouped into 12 pillars: infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.
Among Asean countries, the Philippines ranked fifth,after Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Despite the improvements, problematic factors remain in terms of inefficient government bureaucracy, inadequate supply of infrastructure, corruption, complexity of tax regulations and high tax
According to the survey, the country ranked highest, at No. 24, in the macro-economic environment pillar, followed by market size pillar at No. 30, and business sophistication at No. 24. It rated 48th in innovation.
The country performed lowest in the goods market efficiency pillar, labor market efficiency, and health and primary education pillar, with infrastructure as the lowest.