Despite the economic and political woes plaguing the nation, Malaysia has managd to move up two spots to become the world’s 18th most competitive economy, a new report has revealed.
The World Economic Forum‘s Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016, unveiled today, put Malaysia two spots higher from its previous ranking of 20th out of 144 surveyed countries.
This is Malaysia’s best showing on the report since 2005. Malaysia also remains the highest-ranked among developing Asian countries on the WEF’s list.
Reacting to the good news, Minister of International Trade and Industries Mustapa Mohamed expressed his relief of Malaysia’s improving stature amidst a challenging global economy.
“This ranking is also an endorsement of the progress we have made in enhancing efficiency and competitiveness through the Government Transformation Programme and the Economic Transformation Programme,” he said in a statement published on Bernama today.
According to the WEF report, Malaysia pulled ahead of such notable global players as South Korea, Australia, France, and Saudi Arabia in terms of overall competetiveness.
Switzerland emerged for the seventh consecutive year as the world’s most competitive economy, followed by Singapore, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, Finland, Sweden, the UK, Norway and Denmark.
