South Africa Rises 7 Places in Annual WEF Global Competitiveness Index

JOHANNESBURG -  Brand South Africa today welcomed the 2015/16 results of the World Economic Forum's annual Global Competitiveness Index which sees South Africa rise seven places from 56 to 49 of 140 countries.

Speaking about South Africa's significantly improved performance in the Global Competitiveness Index, Brand South Africa's CEO Kingsley Makhubela said, "Building a country's competitiveness is a collective endevour involving the collaboration of government, business and civil society.  Ultimately it involves all South Africans to coalesce around this national objective."

"The results of the 2015/16 Global Competitiveness Index shows that South Africa has made significant improvements towards ensuring we are a globally competitive destination.  The report resonates with our own assessment that we must work towards strengthening, amongst others, the education and health sectors to ensure our sustained competitiveness.  The National Development Plan outlines the steps we need to take to achieve this."

"We thank all South Africans for your contribution to building South Africa's competitiveness and look forward to further improvements in the next year," concluded Mr Makhubela.



South Africa's biggest improvements come in the areas of: infrastructure (up 8 places), health and primary education (up 6 places), labour market efficiency (up 6 places), technological readiness (up 16 places), and innovation (up 5 places).

South Africa has also improved in the areas of: macro-economic environment (up 4 places), higher education and training (up 3 places), and business sophistication (up 2 places).

South Africa has dropped in the area of institutions (down 2 places), goods market efficiency (down 6 places), financial market development (down 5 places) and market size (down 4 places).Top of Form