The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Ranking 2015-16 saw the UK drop from ninth to tenth place, overtaken by Sweden. LSE Enterprise managed the UK-based executive opinion survey that fed into the report, and found that the poor state of public finances in the UK was enabling other countries to pull ahead.
The survey of UK executives highlighted the inaccessibility of public loans, and noted that the quality of education in science, technology, engineering and medicine subjects could be improved. However the UK scored highly in many areas. The report concluded that ‘The country has created a good set of conditions for its vibrant service sector to develop and for London to become the epicenter of the European tech and start-up scene. It boasts solid public and private institutions, strong property protection rights and an efficient judicial system.’ (http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2015-2016/economies/#economy=GBR )
Dr Robyn Klingler-Vidra, senior researcher at LSE Enterprise, says:
The UK’s performance in the World Economic Forum’s 2015-2016 Global Competitiveness Ranking reflects its ability to attract global talent, outstanding universities, top scientific research abilities and growing technology sector – the quantity and quality of tech startups continues to advance as a tangible output of the ‘Dragons’ Den effect’ – and continued leading position of its finance industry in the global financial sector. The UK dropped in the rankings – to #10 from #9 – largely due to macroeconomic conditions, especially the government deficit and public debt as a percentage of GDP. Getting public finances in order is essential to furthering the UK’s competitive positioning in 2016.
This is the sixth consecutive year that LSE Enterprise has partnered with the World Economic Forum to conduct a UK-based executive opinion survey, The Voice of the Business Community. The information gained by Dr Klingler-Vidra and fellow researcher Elitsa Garnizova covered a broad range of variables for which hard data sources are scarce or nonexistent. This is a major component of the annual Global Competitiveness Report, which is widely recognised as the world’s leading cross-country comparison of factors affecting economic competitiveness and growth.
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