Tag Archives: global competitiveness

More juice for the E-stonia brand

Posted on 19 September 09 | 1 Comment

wifi_eeSome good news for the “E-stonia” brand. The Economist Intelligence Unit just released its annual IT industry competitiveness index, and Estonia again outpaced all of its formerly Communist neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe. Overall, Estonia placed 23rd out of the 66 countries ranked, an improvement of one place from last year. Estonia also topped fellow EU members Italy (#24), Spain (#25), Portugal (#30), and Greece (#32).

Number 1 in the world was again the U.S., but the greatest improvement was clocked by #2 Finland, up from #13 last year. Bottom of the list (#66) was once again Iran.

There’s a good overview of the rankings from a Baltic perspective at the Baltic Course.

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Posted in Science & technology

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Estonia’s global competitiveness: weaker, but still respectable

Posted on 13 September 09 | Leave a comment

Estonia has consistently earned a respectable spot on the annual Global Competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum. In this year’s report, released earlier this week, Estonia placed 35th out of 133 countries ranked, a small drop from the #32 slot it held last year.

“Competitiveness” is meant to be broad gauge of a country’s overall business climate. According to the WEF, the rankings are based on 12 “pillars”: Institutions, Infrastructure, Macroeconomic Stability, Health and Primary Education, Higher Education and Training, Goods Market Efficiency, Labour Market Efficiency, Financial Market Sophistication, Technological Readiness, Market Size, Business Sophistication, and Innovation.

Estonia ranked higher than many of its fellow European Union members, including Poland (46), Italy (48), Lithuania (53), Latvia (68), and Greece (71). The highest-ranking EU members were Sweden (4), Denmark (5), Finland (6), and Germany (7). Among the formerly Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Estonia was second-best, trailing only the Czech Republic (31).

This year’s overall top spot went to Switzerland, which displaced the United States (now #2).

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Posted in Economic, News

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