Ghana 114th best place to do business

Ghana has dropped to the 114th position in this year’s ranking of countries according to their competitiveness in doing business.

This is according to the Global Competitiveness* *Report 2013-2014 which* *assessed 148 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity.

The Report series which is published by the World Economic Forum remains the most comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness worldwide.

The report emphasizes that Ghana’s drop from last year’s 103rd position is as a result of deterioration in its macroeconomic indicators (reversing last year’s trend).

The report used 12 criteria to judge each country's competitiveness, including infrastructure, financial stability and the education system. But innovation was the key to climbing the rankings, according to the report’s authors.

The report said with regard to strengths, the country seems to be improving its public institutions, which are already somewhat strong by regional standards going up by five places to 70th. Government efficiency however ranked 57th among the 148 countries.

It said some aspects of the nation’s infrastructure are good for the region, particularly the state of the ports, and financial institutions as well as goods markets are also relatively well developed ranking 52nd and 70th, respectively.

The report recommended that Ghana must do much more to develop and deploy talent in the country adding that education levels continue to trail international standards at all levels.

It cited the country’s labor markets as being characterized by inefficiencies. This year’s report said the country is not sufficiently harnessing new technologies for productivity enhancements.

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