Ireland’s Improved Competitiveness Ranking is Positive News with a Cautionary Note
The 2016 IMD World Competitiveness Scorecard has placed Ireland as the 7th most competitive place to do business. It is great to see Ireland’s international competiveness performance improve with a dramatic increase from 16th to 7th place in one year. The improvement in Ireland’s ranking shows recognition of Ireland’s strong economic performance in 2015-2016.
Ireland’s improved competitiveness ranking is also linked to a high score in business efficiency which recognises productivity and labour market flexibility. It is important that Ireland continues to focus on controlling increasing business costs where possible to ensure that national competitiveness is not undermined as a result of improved conditions in some sectors of the economy.
While this improved ranking and positive performance for the Irish economy is very welcome news, it also highlights that Ireland did not score strongly in the infrastructure indicator. In fact, Ireland was scored in the low 20s on the measurement of how infrastructure affects the competitiveness of doing business in Ireland.
Ireland must continue to address threats to national competitiveness and it is clear that investment in infrastructure is essential to support continued economic growth in Ireland but also to ensure that Ireland remains an attractive place to do business. Chambers Ireland has long been in favour of increased government investment in economically important infrastructure projects and the IMD competitiveness scorecard shows that Ireland can be in an even stronger position in terms of international competitiveness if the country’s infrastructure is improved.
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