Inefficient Govt: Bureaucracy, Corruption and Unskilled Workforce hindering Economic Growth in Pakistan: GCI, World Economic Forum

Global Competitiveness Report, edited by Professor Klaus Shcwab released on 26^th September, 2017 has elevated Pakistan’s ranking in Global Competitiveness Index to 115^th position up from last year’s 122^nd rank.

The report mentions that, South Asia has improved competitiveness across the board, in particular in the two Himalayan countries of Bhutan (82nd, up 15) and Nepal (88th, up 10). On a similarly positive trend, Pakistan (115th, up seven) and Bangladesh (99th, up seven) have both improved their scores across all pillars of competitiveness.

The Report highlighted that South Asian region continues to struggle with upgradation of ICT (Internet, Communications & Technology) Infrastructure and increasing ICT continues to remain as the biggest challenge in the region. Over the years, the report mentioned, South Asia’s technological readiness remained stagnated same as that of the Sub Saharan Region.

The Global Competitiveness Index uses a methodology which takes into account any given economy’s basic requirements; Institutions, Infrastructure and macro level elements, Pakistan’s performance on providing basic resources has been abysmal, ranking at 115, Pakistan’s position is well behind some of the civil war torn countries like Libya.

Efficiency Enhancers, the factors which help analyze an economy’s effectiveness and efficiency in operations with respect to market size, labor and goods markets, and education & training takes into account future outlook and current snapshot of the progress of economy. Pakistan ranks 104^th in the world in Efficiency Enhancers category, helped by higher ranks in Market Size and Financial Market Development heads whereas education and labor market trailing behind at 120 and 128 on the table.

Third factor considered to carry out the analysis is Innovation and Sophistication Factors; Business Sophistication and Innovation, which attempts to gauge how conducive the economy is to welcome and accept innovative developments and back them financially in order to minimize costs and increase efficiency. Pakistan's rank is much better as more and more Millennials continue to adopt digital infrastructure and connectivity infrastructure and reach improves in the country,

Highlighting the most problematic factors in the country, the report put Inefficient Government Bureaucracy, Corruption, and inadequate educated workforce in the top three. These rankings were generated by asking respondents to the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey, who are asked to select the five most problematic factors for doing business in their country and to rank them between 1 (most problematic) and 5. These scores were generated by taking a detailed survey with the Executive audience of companies and businesses operating in Pakistan.