Qatar retained a top place in the 2016 edition of the annual World Competitiveness Yearbook, which is issued by the Lausanne-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD), ranking  the state13th out of 61 countries.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics said “the ranking reflects the high status that Qatar continues to achieve on all fronts as competitiveness in the report is measured based on a group of data and statistical indices as well as views of company executives and businessmen who were included in the report’s field survey and offered their opinions on the business environment and competitiveness of the Qatari economy”.
HE the Minister of Development Planning and Statistics Dr Saleh bin Mohamed Salem al-Nabit welcomed the report’s outcome, stressing that it enhances Qatar’s global status.
The results, he said, helped as a guide for areas that had room for improvements.
Dr al-Nabit said the National Development Strategy (NDS) specified clear goals in the fields of commercial businesses, economic infrastructure and private sector development, which would lead to more progress in the future.
He added that Qatar had no option but to diversify its economy and to achieve this “it has to constantly work to raise efficiency and productivity and improve its international competitiveness”.
According to the statement, indices were positive in some aspects such as surplus in the current account balance and the trade balance, low unemployment rate, high real growth rate of GDP, rise in the surplus in general budget and efficiency of financial management.
Meanwhile, some indices require more improvement, including the index on the concentration of exports in terms of goods and business partners, limited incoming direct investment, low high-tech exports, and low proportion of renewable energy of the total energy requirements.
The yearbook’s chapter on Qatar is a result of co-operation between IMD in Switzerland and the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics. It’s the eighth edition of the yearbook in which Qatar took part.