Media ININ Economy We Trust
Media IN Kuala Lumpur, May 29:
Malaysia has maintained its 22nd rank, among 63 countries, in the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) 2019 published by IMD World Competitiveness Centre, based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
With a score of 82.54 out of 100 points, Malaysia sustained its position for the second year, reflecting positive sentiments of the business community towards the new government, announced International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Darell Leiking.
“The report showed improvements in institutional related indicators such as bribery and corruption, transparency, bureaucracy, justice, social cohesion and public finance in terms of rankings and value scored compared to the previous year,” the minister said.
“All these indicators increased in value score more than 10 per cent, ranging between 10.8 per cent in public finances to 31.1 per cent in bribery and corruption.”
The WCY 2019 assesses economies based on four competitiveness input factors namely economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure with each encompassing five sub-factors, Malaysia News Agency (Bernama) reported.
Overall, Malaysia continues to be ahead of Belgium (27th), South Korea (28th) and Japan (30th).
Malaysia was overtaken by New Zealand by one spot to be ranked 7th among the 14 Asia-Pacific economies and was second only to Singapore in ASEAN, outpacing other nations in the region.
Malaysia emerged second among the 28 economies with gross domestic product per capita less than $ 20,000.
“I believe Malaysia’s economic indicators are improving and through the implementation of key reforms Malaysia will prosper in this competitive race,” he added.
