By: Natasha Archary
South African businesses have cited energy security, inflationary pressure, global recession and socio-economic disparity as major obstacles to SA’s competitiveness.
According to the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2023 (WCY), South Africa dropped one place from 60th to 61st in the World Competitiveness ranking.
This follows 2-years of underperformance in the rankings from 2021.
Dr Leroi Raputsoane, Productivity SA Chief Economist, joins Gugulethu Mfuphi on Kaya Biz to unpack what this means for the country pitted up against the rest of the world.
“We’ve dropped by one place from 60 to 61 in the last year and if you look at the factors that played in a role in that drop, you’ll notice that it’s quite a widespread problem.
How we are performing economically, how efficient our government is, as well as the state of the country’s infrastructure are all factors that effected SA’s competitiveness ranking.”
Dr Leroi Raputsoane, Productivity SA Chief Economist
In terms of infrastructure alone, South Africa ranks at No. 62 out of the 64 countries that were rated.
This means that South Africa is just 2 places above being the worst in the world in terms of basic infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity, technological infrastructure, science, health, education and environmental infrastructure.
Dr Raputsoane contends that the ongoing underperformance of South Africa in the World competitiveness rankings is a symptom of the continued inadequacy of the national efforts to address the socio-economic challenges that are faced by the country.
The continued inability to reverse the international competitiveness standing of the country undermines the creation of a business-friendly environment and hence exacerbates the legacy changes of high unemployment as well as poverty and income inequality in South Africa.
Each country’s data was evaluated from 350 distinct criteria, which were grouped in 4 factors, where South Africa performed as follows against the 64 countries.
- Economic performance – 61st
- Government efficiency – 59th
- Business efficiency – 54th Infrastructure – 62nd
Meanwhile, Denmark was the most competitive country in the world, ranking 1st in all categories.
Listen to the conversation on Kaya Biz:
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