Macedonia's ranking in the latest Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) is seen as the biggest improvement compared with Balkan countries and EU members, said Deputy Premier for Economic Affairs Vladimir Pesevski.

"For the first time, Macedonia is included in the first half of the most competitive economies in the world and is ranked above the average of Balkan countries, which is 79th place, together with Bulgaria, Croatia and Montenegro," Pesevski told Thursday's press conference.

According to the report, Macedonia has made significant improvements in six out of seven indicators - capacity for innovation, quality of scientific research institutions, company spending on research and development (R&D), university-industry collaboration in R&D, government procurement of advanced tech products and availability of scientists and engineers.

Pesevski said that Macedonia had the best ranking in connection to tax rate (1st place). The country is second involving the number of days to start a business and third regarding the number of procedures to start a business. Remarkable improvement compared to last year has been made involving the indicators over the influence of business regulations on foreign direct investments, availability to financial services and transparency in the creation of government policies.

"These improvements are an additional confirmation of the positive effects stemming from the government's projects and activities to improve the business climate, to attract foreign direct investments, to boost the dialogue with the business community and to implement the innovation strategy," the Deputy PM noted.

He added that shortcomings had been identified pledging the government would make efforts to improve them.

Macedonia ranks 73rd in the global competitiveness index compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2013-14, climbing seven places compared to last year when it ranked 80th.

Compared to the countries in the region, Bulgaria is 57th, Slovenia is 62nd, Montenegro-67th, Croatia-75th, BiH-87th, Greece-91st, Albania-95th and Serbia is 101st.

According to the WEF report, out of 148 countries worldwide, Switzerland is the most competitive country, followed by Singapore, Finland and Germany. Sweden, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Japan and Great Britain round up the top ten.