ESWATINI FALLS TO 120 IN GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

MBABANE – Eswatini has been ranked the 120th most competitive economy in the world, on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2018-19.

Out of the 140 countries that participated, the overall performance of the Kingdom of Eswatini was 120th position.
This is a decline of four places from last year’s rank where the country stood at position 116 out of 137 countries.

The WEF measures competitiveness by considering 12 factors that would determine the level of productivity in a country, including institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health, education, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size and innovation.
The FSE&CC is the implementation partner of WEF, for the Global Competitiveness Report.

Pillars

While Eswatini’s scores showed mixed results across all 12 pillars of competitiveness, it trailed by some distance behind some of her Southern African peers — South Africa (67), Namibia (100) Botswana (90).

Musa Dlamini from the Federation of Swaziland Employers & Chamber of Commerce (FSE&CC), said this decline in the rankings was a huge concern to the private sector as it speaks to our reduced ability to compete on the global stage, as well as a blow in the efforts to attract much needed Foreign Direct Investment.

The country needs to develop policies that will see Eswatini achieve double digit GCI rankings, in the next three to five years.
Eswatini has been experiencing a steady inflation rate over the years; however, rising public debt coupled diminishing reserves elevated concerns about the macroeconomic stability of the country.

Thus the country was ranked 115 under that pillar, which was one of the underperforming pillars.
The cost of mobile data and services is one of the highest in the region, which results in low mobile and broadband penetration rates.

Capability

Hence the country was ranked 125 under the pillar of ICT adoption, and consequently 134 under innovation capability, due to the close nature of innovation to a thriving ICT sector.

With anestimated life expectancy 49.6, the country is among the worst performing countries on this pillar, being ranked 139 out of 140.  This is a consequence of the country’s unequal access to healthcare and deteriorating health care system.

According to the WEF report, the top 10 economies in the world are led by the US, which is the closest economy to the frontier with a competitiveness score of 85.6, followed by Singapore, with a ranking of 83.5 and Germany, with a ranking of 82.8.

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