2009 Press Releases

25th place for Ireland in Global Competitiveness Report
09.09.2009

Ireland’s competitiveness performance has deteriorated, dropping three places to 25th of 130 countries in the annual Global Competitiveness Report published today (September 9th 2009).
Deterioration in what are categorised as efficiency enhancers such as financial market sophistication and efficiency of both goods and labour markets account for most of the decline in Ireland’s ranking in addition to worsening across a range of indicators of macroeconomic stability.  

The decline in Ireland’s position focuses attention on Ireland’s relatively weaker ability to deal with the exceptional global financial and economic crises.  

The Global Competitiveness Report provided benchmarking tools for business leaders and policymakers to identify obstacles to improved competitiveness thereby supporting discussion on strategies to overcome them.

The full report is available at  http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm

Dr Eleanor Doyle, Director (Interim) of the Institute for Competitiveness, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Department of Economics, UCC and who leads the Irish contribution to the Executive Opinion Survey for the GCR explains:  “The current difficult economic environment highlights the need not to lose sight of long-term competitiveness fundamentals amid short-term urgencies.  The underlying framework of the GCR shows clearly that present actions impact on future prosperity.  Prioritising the factors driving the productivity enhancements on which present and future prosperity will be built is vital, more so give the limited budgetary positions of companies and government.  Local implications of the report, for example, point to the need to discuss not only how NAMA might address the Banking crisis, but more importantly, how it will impact the broader competitive base of the economy and how businesses will compete out of the current crisis.  The fiscal standing of the government means more than ever that the business and enterprising sector is the key to growing the economy out of crisis.”

The Department of Economics, UCC, is a Partner Institute of the Global Competitiveness Project of the World Economic Forum.

Picture:  Dr Eleanor Doyle

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