Turkey Declines 6 Places In Economic Competitiveness Report

- According to World Economic Forum, Turkey declined six rows due to issues with macroeconomic environment and institutions, revealed the “Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016”.

Switzerland-based World Economic Forum revealed its “Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016” carried out in association with the TÜSİAD – Sabancı University Competition Forum.

Turkey declines to 51st in competitiveness ranking

The report showed Turkey has become 51st among 140 countries, while urging that countries needed to increase efficiencies to combat the decline in growth worldwide and high unemployment.

The finding also suggested that countries that have failed to improve competitive strength were accordingly more vulnerable against stagnation and other shocks.

Among these 140 countries, Switzerland, Singapore and the United States continued to support innovation, topping all other economies studied within the report.

The number shows Saudi Arabia ranked 25th, Turkey 51st , and Brazil 75th , all having dropped since last year. Meanwhile, after 5 years of decline India made a significant leap, rising by 16 positions to the 55th place. China stayed in 28th place this year, as the highest-positioned among the BRICS countries.

Turkey: Volatile political environment and geopolitical strife in focus

The comments on Turkey pointed out that Turkey ranked 51st among 140 countries, while it was 45th among 144 countries in 2014, and 44th among 148 countries in 2013.

According to the report, “the volatile political environment (June 2015 elections) and geopolitical strife merged to create an environment of uncertainty, which led to the decline of private investments, particularly international investments, which play a large part in the development of Turkey”.

Also, slowdown in investments over high inflation rates and drop in confidence in the local financial sector were underlined for Turkey's loss of position. In this regard, the report points to “an adverse macroeconomic environment” in the country.

Sharp decline in competitiveness index components

Turkey has a GDP of 806.1 billion US dollars according to 2014 purchasing power parity, a per-capita income of 10,482 US dollars, and that Turkey's GDP accounts for 1.40 percent of the global total, reveals the report.

Also, Turkey's best performance among the pillars of the Global Competitiveness Index was in the "market size" component, with the 16th position.

There was a sharp decline in competitiveness index components, while the only surge spotted was in labor market efficiency, and the market size component stayed the same. Also, Turkey's largest drop was in the Institutions index where it ranked 75th.

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