Kenya drops in economic competitiveness, ranks twelfth in Africa

Kenya has been ranked 12^th among most competitive African economies, this is according the 2015/2016 Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) Report.

Kenya was beaten by Mauritius, South Africa, Rwanda, Botswana, Morocco, Cote D’Ivore, Tunisia, Namibia, Algeria, Zambia and Seychelles.

On the other hand, Kenya beat Uganda and Tanzania who ranked 19th and 22nd respectively. In the GCI report, Kenya was been ranked 99^th out of the 144 ranked economies globally .

Switzerland came first with Singapore coming second and the United States taking the third port.

This is a drop in rankings for Kenya, who was number 90 in the previous report.

According to the report, seven years after the global financial crisis, the world economy is evolving against the background of the “new normal” of lower economic growth, lower productivity growth, and high unemployment.

Although overall prospects remain positive, growth is expected to remain below the levels recorded in previous decades in most developed economies and in many emerging markets, reads the report.

The report further says: “In 2013, emerging markets grew almost four times as quickly as advanced economies (5 percent versus 1.3 percent); in 2015 they are projected to be growing less than twice as quickly (4.2 percent versus 2.1 percent).”

The GCI combines 114 indicators that capture concepts that matter for productivity. These indicators are grouped into 12 pillars: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.

GCI includes statistical data from internationally recognized agencies, notably the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; and the World Health Organization.

It also includes data from the World Economic Forum’s annual Executive Opinion Survey to capture concepts that require a more qualitative assessment, or for which comprehensive and internationally comparable statistical data are not available.

This year, the GCI Report covered 144 economies. Because of absence of data, GCI did not include Angola, Barbados, Burkina Faso, Libya, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Timor-Leste, or Yemen. However, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, and Liberia, which could not be included in the previous report, were reinstated this year.

Altogether, the combined output of the economies covered in the GCI represents 98.3 percent of world GDP.