Malaysia maintains 22nd position in IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2019, says minister

KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 ― Malaysia has maintained its 22nd rank, among 63 countries, in the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) 2019 published by IMD World Competitiveness Centre, based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

With a score of 82.54 out of 100 points, Malaysia sustained its position for the second year, reflecting positive sentiments of the business community towards the new government, announced International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Darell Leiking.

“The report showed improvements in institutional related indicators such as bribery and corruption, transparency, bureaucracy, justice, social cohesion and public finance in terms of rankings and value scored compared to the previous year.

“All these indicators increased in value score more than 10 per cent, ranging between 10.8 per cent in public finances to 31.1 per cent in bribery and corruption,” he said in a statement.

The WCY 2019 assesses economies based on four competitiveness input factors namely economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure with each encompassing five sub-factors.

Overall, Malaysia continues to be ahead of Belgium (27th), South Korea (28th) and Japan (30th).

Malaysia was overtaken by New Zealand by one spot to be ranked 7th among the 14 Asia-Pacific economies and was second only to Singapore in Asean, outpacing other nations in the region.

Malaysia emerged second among the 28 economies with gross domestic product per capita less than US$20,000 (RM83,715).

Darell said the challenging external environment last year had somewhat affected the competitiveness of smaller economies where Malaysia was not spared.

He said incidents, which include, the shutdown of the United States’ federal government, as well as the uncertainties in its monetary policies, the slowdown in China’s economic growth and the ongoing US-China trade tension, had also affected the global economy, and thus the nation’s economy.

However, in comparing the top 15 competitive economies on the chart with Malaysia’s overall performance, it was recorded that the country’s economic performance at 11th position was comparable with the second most competitive economy Hong Kong (10th) and had surpassed other competing economies alike Canada (12th), Switzerland (23rd) and Finland (35th), he explained.

“Malaysia needs to move from an input-driven to productivity-driven growth to achieve sustainable economic expansion, in line with the initiatives outlined in the Malaysia Productivity Blueprint.

“I believe Malaysia’s economic indicators are improving and through the implementation of key reforms Malaysia will prosper in this competitive race,” he added. ― Bernama