IMD's World Competitiveness Index 2022: The annual World Competitive Index (WCI) was recently released by the Institute for Management Development (IMD).

Key Highlight:

• India witnessed the sharpest rise among Asian countries with a six-position jump from 43rd to 37th rank on the annual World Competitive Index (WCI) 2022.
• The rise is largely due to gains in economic performance.

Reasons for better performance in WCI:

• Indian economy witnessed significant improvement in competitiveness, after stable and stagnant five years because of gains in economic performance.
• The domestic economy has experienced a stratospheric rise from 30th to 9th position in a year.
• The labour market is a key sub-factor in the business efficiency parameter, moved up from 15th to 6th, while management practices and business attitudes and values also made major leaps.
• With major improvements in the context of retrospective taxes in 2021, India has restored the trust of the business community.
• Its re-regulation of a number of sectors, including drones, geo-spatial mapping and space has also played a role in the country's stellar performance in the 2022 World Competitiveness Centre (WCR).
• It is also a driving force in the global movement to fight climate change.
• Furthermore, India’s pledge of net zero by 2070 at the COP26 summit in November 2021 is in sync with its strength in environment-related technologies in the 2022 ranking.

Challenges faced by India:

India faces challenges like -

1. Managing trade disruptions and  energy security,
2. Maintaining high GDP growth after covid-19,
3. Employment generation,
4. Skill development,
5. Resource mobilization for infrastructure development, and
6. Asset monetization.

What are the top five attractive factors in India’s economy?

The top five attractive factors for business in the Indian economy are -

1)Skilled workforce

2)Dynamism of economy

3)Cost competitiveness

4)Positive attitudes

5)High educational level

Countries in the top 10:

• Denmark has been ranked at the top position, among the top 63-nation list. It was ranked at third position in 2021.
• Switzerland dropped from the top position to the second position.
• It is followed by Singapore in the third position, which was ranked at fifth, position.
• Sweden, Hong Kong SAR and Netherlands at fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively.
• Taiwan at seventh position followed by Finland in the eighth position
• Norway at ninth position with
• USA at 10th position.