10-13-2004, 01:29 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Observant Ruminant
Location: Rich Wannabe Hippie Town
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And the most competitive economy in the world is....
Finland.
The United States is number two. All the other Scandinavian countries are in the top ten also, despite being both socialist and high-tax countries. Because, they're "in the forefront of technological innovation."
The link, and the article:
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=2ede517b108de734
Quote:
Big News Network.com Thursday 14th October, 2004
Finland is the most competitive economy in the world, according to a report released Wednesday by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum.
In the Global Competitiveness Report 2004-2005, which ranked 104 global economies, the United States ranked second, followed by Sweden, Taiwan, Denmark and Norway, consecutively. In fact Nordic countries hold top 10 spots in the list: Finland (1), Sweden (3), Denmark (5), Norway (6) and Iceland (10). The largest improvement among these countries is posted by Norway with a move up from ninth to sixth place this year.
The Nordic countries are characterized by excellent macroeconomic management overall -- they are all running budget surpluses -- they have extremely low levels of corruption ... and their private sectors are on the forefront of technological innovation, said Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief economist and director of the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Programme.
The United Kingdom, Japan, Chile, Canada and Estonia all gained ground over last year, while Italy fell to 47th place, compared to 26th in 2001. China, ranked 46th, slightly below last year while Taiwan took fourth place and Singapore, seventh.
With few exceptions, the economies in Latin America exhibited worsening levels of competitiveness in 2004.
South Africa (41) leads Africa in the global rankings, showing an overall improvement on last year's performance.
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