India maintains 43rd rank on IMD index

India maintained 43rd rank on an annual World Competitiveness Index compiled by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) that examined the impact of Covid-19 on economies around the world this year.

India has maintained its position for the past three years, but this year, it had significant improvements in government efficiency, IMD said. "India's improvements in the government efficiency factor are mostly due to relatively stable public finances (despite difficulties brought by the pandemic, in 2020 the government deficit stayed at 7 per cent) and to the positive feedbacks we registered among Indian business executives with respect to the support and subsidies provided by the government to the private companies," IMD said.

The 64-nation list was led by Switzerland, while Sweden has moved up to the second position (from sixth last year), Denmark has lost one place to rank third, the Netherlands has retained its fourth place and Singapore has slipped to the fifth place (from first in 2020). At eighth, Taiwan reached the top-10 for the first time since the ranking began 33 years ago (moving up from 11th last year). The UAE and the USA remain in their same spots as last year (9th and 10th, respectively). The top-performing Asian economies are, in order, Singapore (fifth), Hong Kong (seventh), Taiwan (eighth) and China (16th). The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking ranks 64 economies and assesses the extent to which a country promotes the prosperity of its people by measuring economic well-being through hard data and survey responses from executives. This year, the rankings expose the economic impact of the pandemic across the globe. Among the BRICS nations, India is ranked second after China (16), followed by Russia (45th), Brazil (57th) and South Africa (62th).

IMD, however, added that the short term performance of India's economy will depend on its ability to address the pandemic.