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By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
South Korea's global competitiveness moved down two places from last year to land at 13th this year, losing its edge in market efficiency and business sophistication, a much-watched global index showed Wednesday.
In its Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009, the World Economic Forum (WEF) moderately scaled down the infrastructure, labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication and corporate innovation for Korea.
The Geneva-based WEF is an independent organization that annually ranks the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the world's economies based on economic data and surveys.
The latest report highlighted high school education and job training, macroeconomic stability and low HIV prevalence rates as the country's strengths.
South Korea's economy grew 0.8 percent in the second quarter, which follows growth of 0.8 percent in the January-March period and 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007.
The United States once again kept its No. 1 spot as being most competitive, followed by Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan were among Asian countries that beat out South Korea. The survey polled a total of 134 countries.
WEF assess a country's competitiveness based on twelve pillars that are considered essential to economic growth, including institutions, infrastructure, innovation, technological readiness and market sophistication.
Korea nabbed second place in terms of the government's aggressiveness to apply new technology, fourth in broadband Internet subscribers and third in high school entrance rates.
Some of the weaker areas were business start-up procedure (75th), tariff rates (99th), labor-management cooperation (95th) and women's economic participation (80th).
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy, which released the report, said although the country's ranking slipped slightly, staying within the upper bracket demonstrates strong competitiveness.
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
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