The UAE’s performance

The UAE was ranked 10th globally in the IMD World Competitiveness Booklet 2023 issued by the World Competitiveness Centre of the World Institute for Management Development (IMD). In the same report, it was ranked 1st in the Middle East and North Africa region for the 7th consecutive year. 

Its global ranking in the various factors is as follows:

• 4^th in economic performance
• 8^th in government efficiency
• 16^th in business efficiency
• 26^th in infrastructure.

Its global ranking in the various sub-factors is as follows:

• 1^st  in international trade
• 2^nd  in basic infrastructure
• 4^th in domestic economy
• 4^th in tax policy
• 6^th in employment
• 6^th in labour market
• 8^th in attitudes and values
• 9^th in business legislation.

Methodology

The IMD World Competitiveness ranking analysed and ranked the capacities of 63 countries to create and maintain an environment, which sustains the competitiveness of enterprises.

 Ranking divides the national environment into four main factors:

1. economic performance
2. government efficiency
3. business efficiency
4. infrastructure.

Each of these factors is divided into 5 sub-factors, which highlight every facet of the areas analysed. These 20 sub-factors comprise 333 criteria. Each sub-factor, regardless of the number of criteria it contains, has the same weight in the overall consolidation of results.

The results of the 20 sub-factors is aggregated to get the total consolidation, leading to the overall ranking of the IMD World Competitiveness ranking.

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Download IMD World Competitiveness Booklet 2023 (PDF, 1 MB).