We call India a developing country, we even term her as the next super-power, but in actual reality we seem to be moving backwards rather than forward if World Economic Forum’s report is to be believed. According to WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index for 2013-14, India has fallen further and now ranks 60th most competitive economy in the world.
Here is how India’s competitiveness has fallen in last 5 years:
| Year | India’s Competitiveness Rank |
| 2009 | 49th out of 133 economies |
| 2010 | 51st out of 139 economies |
| 2011 | 56th out of 142 economies |
| 2012 | 59th out of 144 economies |
| 2013 | 60th out of 148 economies |
There are 3 main factors which largely contribute to India’s slide – Inadequate supply of infrastructure, Inefficient government bureaucracy and Corruption. Not only this year, but in all previous years these 3 factors have been biggest problematic areas!
It is interesting to note that while India’s GCI (Global Competitiveness Index) score has remained constant at 4.3 (on a scale of 7), but the fall in rankings have come because other economies have increased their competitiveness.
Factors with Best / Worst Rankings
The GCI index comes up with the rankings based on nearly 106 different factors. Here are the top 10 best and worst individual factor rankings.
Best Factors
| Sr. No | Factor | Rank (out of 148) |
| 1 | Local supplier quantity (Business Sophistication) | 2 |
| 2 | GDP (PPP$ billions)* | 3 |
| 3 | Domestic market size | 3 |
| 4 | Foreign market size | 4 |
| 5 | Available airline seat km/week, millions | 13 |
| 6 | Available airline seat km/week | 13 |
| 7 | Availability of scientists and engineers | 15 |
| 8 | State of cluster development (Business Sophistication) | 16 |
| 9 | Financing through local equity market | 18 |
| 10 | Quality of railroad infrastructure | 19 |
Worst Factors
| Sr. No | Factor | Rank (out of 148) |
| 1 | Government budget balance | 140 |
| 2 | Women in labor force, ratio to men* | 137 |
| 3 | Inflation, annual % change* | 130 |
| 4 | No. procedures to start a business* | 129 |
| 5 | Total tax rate | 128 |
| 6 | Trade tariffs, % duty* | 128 |
| 7 | Exports as a percentage of GDP* | 125 |
| 8 | Mobile telephone subscriptions/100 pop.* | 123 |
| 9 | Infant mortality, deaths/1,000 live births | 120 |
| 10 | Individuals using Internet | 120 |
If you notice the top 10 best and worst factor rankings, it is quite clear that India ranks quite well when it comes to her market size and financial markets development. In general even on health and primary education the rankings are decent.
However, when it comes to Infrastructure, current economic environment, business sophistication, technological readiness or even innovation India ranks quite poorly.
Surprisingly, India ranks quite lowly (123 out of 148) even with the huge mobile subscription base that she has.
It is also quite sad to see that internet usage is extremely low in India, a country which is a leader in Software development services!
What is your take on these rankings?
