The Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) 2012-2013, issued by the World Economic Forum, ranks Macedonia at the 80th place out of 144 countries.

“It means that Macedonia has preserved its Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) of the last year in a period when all economies in the region register decline”, Vice-Premier Vladimir Pesevski told reporters on Wednesday.

“Montenegro goes down for 12 places, Albania - 11; Greece - 6; Croatia - 5, while Macedonia only for one, as this year report includes two new countries. One of them - Seychelles Islands - is ranked in front of Macedonia”, Mr. Pesevski said.

In regard to Macedonia, the report notifies improvements in indicators, such as total tax rate/profits; days to start a business, macroeconomic environment; goods market efficiency and functioning of institutions.

Better results in comparison to last year have been also registered in regard to ease of access to loans, availability of financial services, business impact of rules of FDI, quality of port, air-traffic infrastructure. The first three are a result of the Government's anti-crisis measures, namely cutting of taxes and regulatory guillotine, while for the last two credits should be given to Turkish TAV, Mr. Pesevski said.

Substantial improvements have been notified in terms of availability of research and training services; primary education enrolment; property rights; intellectual property protection; transparency of government policy-making; soundness of banks and wastefulness of government spending.

Downward trends are related to inflation - annual change; firm-level technology absorption; university-industry collaboration in R&D; cooperation in labor-employer relations; capacity for innovation; willingness to delegate authority; degree of customer orientation and buyer sophistication.

The National Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness Council will review all the weaknesses notified in the report and where-ever possible the Government will propose appropriate measures for their overcoming, Mr. Pesevski said.

Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands are on the top of the 2012-2013 GCR, which is being released amid a long period of economic uncertainty. The tentative recovery that seemed to be gaining ground during 2010 and the first half of 2011 has given way to renewed concerns. The global economy faces a number of significant and interrelated challenges that could hamper a genuine upturn after an economic crisis half a decade long in much of the world, especially in the most advanced economies, the report reads.

Since 2005, the World Economic Forum has based its competitiveness analysis on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), a comprehensive tool that measures the microeconomic and macroeconomic foundations of national competitiveness. It defines competitiveness as the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country. The level of productivity, in turn, sets the level of prosperity that can be earned by an economy. The productivity level also determines the rates of return obtained by investments in an economy, which in turn are the fundamental drivers of its growth rates. In other words, a more competitive economy is one that is likely to sustain growth.

The concept of competitiveness thus involves static and dynamic components. Although the productivity of a country determines its ability to sustain a high level of income, it is also one of the central determinants of its returns to investment, which is one of the key factors explaining an economy's growth potential.