In this week’s column I evaluate the 2007-2008 results in the Global Competitiveness Index provided by the World Economic Forum (WEF), paying particular attention to those for Guyana and other Caricom countries.

Top performers

The Index (2007-2008) covered 131 countries, the largest number so far. The top ten performers were countries in the so-called developed world:

1. United States 6. Finland

2. Switzerland 7. Singapore

3. Denmark 8. Japan

4. Sweden 9. United Kingdom

5. Germany 10. Netherlands

While the United States held the top position and Singapore and Japan came in 7th and 8th respectively, the other countries in the top 10 were all European. Knocking at the door, as it were, the next four positions (11-14) were held by Korea, Hong Kong, Canada and Taiwan in descending order of ranking. African countries, with the exception of Guyana (126) and East Timor (127), occupied all the bottom 10 positions (122-131).

Latin America and the Caribbean

Turning to the results for the Latin American-Caribbean region, the report concluded that despite the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) projection of “healthy growth” in 2007: “Most countries