The latest edition of the world's leading competitiveness survey has underlined Australia's long-term challenge to build the foundations of economic growth.
The World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007, released in Australia by CEDA tomorrow, shows Australia's economic infrastructure continues to present a challenge to improved relative economic performance.
The World Competitiveness Yearbook is compiled each year by the Swiss business school IMD in conjunction with CEDA and other international partners. The Australian rankings set out Australia's performance on a wide range of economic indicators.
Of 55 national economies, Australia ranks 12th overall in 2007, down from sixth in 2006. However, these results are distorted by one large foreign investment transaction, the 2005 change in domicile of News Corporation from Australia to the US. News Corporation's move led to a one-off fall in Australia's international investment and economic performance rankings. CEDA and the IMD agree that Australia's 2007 ranking has been distorted by this change.
The US ranks number 1, followed closely by Singapore and Hong Kong. The Yearbook also shows that many of the 55 tracked countries - including Australia - are closing the performance gap with the US. Among the countries making the fastest progress are China, India and Russia.
"The rankings continue to show the Australian economy performing solidly by world standards," says CEDA chief executive officer David Byers.
"But it is not clear that we are laying the foundations for future economic success."
The Yearbook lists reform of education, encouraging business innovation and boosting investment in infrastructure as key challenges for Australia in 2007.
"Over the past year Australia has begun to focus more closely on the performance of its education systems," Mr Byers said. "We need more attention still. The quality of Australia's human capital - the skills of our people - will drive our success in the decades ahead."
Australia scores poorly on Internet costs (42nd) and mobile telephone costs (38th) and on availability of various types of skilled labour, including availability of qualified engineers (40th).
While the nation ranks fifth out of 55 countries for basic infrastructure, it ranks only 12th for education, 20th for scientific infrastructure and 21st for technological infrastructure.
In a survey of businesspeople for the Yearbook, Australia ranks 36th on the ability of the nation's communications technology to meet business needs.
Overall, Australia ranks 16th on economic infrastructure, just up from 2006's 17th position.
Australia's government framework remains one of the strongest of the countries surveyed, but the nation's government efficiency ranking has dropped from second to seventh since 2004.
Personal income taxes and corporate taxes continue to be relatively high by world standards, though in line with those of other highly developed economies - Australia ranks 36th out of 55 for both types of tax burden.
However, the businesspeople surveyed for the Yearbook rank Australia's political parties highly for their understanding of the country's economic challenges (third out of 55). They also rate the consistency of the government's policy direction highly (4th out of 55).
The Yearbook is produced by Switzerland's IMD, one of the world's top business schools, with the help of CEDA and other international partners. Its rankings and detailed country-by-country data are used by businesses and governments around the world.
For further information please contact:
John Harris
Corporate Relations Director
Phone 03 9652 8415
Email info@ceda.com.au
Printed from the CEDA Web site at http://ceda.com.au. Copyright 1999-2009 CEDA