One of the top ten countries

The UAE was ranked 9^th in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2020, issued by the World Competitiveness Centre of the World Institute for Management Development (IMD). It is ahead of countries such as the United States of America, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is the only Arab country to have maintained its position among the top 10 competitive countries for 4 years in a row.

Assessment methodology

The World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) evaluated 63 countries on 338 indicators which are spread across 4 factors: economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure. Each of these 4 factors are further sub-divided into 5 sub-factors.

The UAE’s performance

The UAE’s performance in the 4 main factors is as follows:

• 3^rd in government efficiency
• 4^th in economic performance
• 7^th in business efficiency
• 28^th in infrastructure.

The following chart shows the 20 sub-factors and the UAE’s rank in each of those:

Click on the image and zoom in for a larger view. 

Image source: IMD World Competitiveness Online

The UAE showed an improvement in 7 sub-factors, including:

1. Labour Market (1^st place globally)
2. Employment (5^th globally in)
3. Pricing (6^th place in)
4. Social framework Education
5. Technology infrastructure
6. Health and the environment

The UAE was ranked 1^st in 23 indicators. Some of the indicators are:

1. Bureaucracy Absence
2. Immigration Laws
3. Redundancy Costs
4. Low Central Government Foreign Debt
5. Tax Evasion
6. Collected Personal Income Tax (%)
7. Collected Indirect Tax Revenues (%)
8. Real Personal Taxes
9. The percentage of Females in Parliament
10. Labor Force out of the total population
11. Working Hours
12. Competent Senior Managers
13. Industrial Disputes and Foreign Labor Force
14. Dependency Ratio
15. Public-Private Partnership and Environmental Laws.

The UAE was ranked among the top 5 in 59 indicators and in top 10 in 106 indicators.

Read the news coverage on WAM and Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre.

Related links

• IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook - Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre
• UAE Competitiveness Ranking - IMD World Competitiveness Online